Obligatory Classic Rock

In the interest of having at least a weekly update (and to prey upon my laziness), I am going to start posting embedded clips of classic rock. So this week will feature arguably the greatest guitar player ever, Jimi Hendrix, performing one of my favorite songs ever, All Along The Watchtower. This is actually a cover of a Bob Dylan song. Interestingly enough, Dylan credits Hendrix with improving the song, even going so far as to perform the song more like Hendrix as time went on. Enjoy.

The Gym

Once upon a time, I used to love to exercise. That was during high school and college, though, when I had hours of free time to pick and choose when to work out. Now that I am in the real world my time has been severely constrained and working out in an empty gym is not an option anymore. And while public gyms do have their benefits (nice equipment, lots of eye candy), they harbor several of my exercise pet peeves.

Cell phones: If you can't put down your cell phone for an hour or so, you don't need to be at the gym. Go home and quite hogging the equipment I have been waiting 20 minutes to use.

Huge bottles of water: Unless you're running a marathon, you don't need to drink a gallon of water in less than an hour. There are water fountains everywhere, so you won't die of dehydration.

Beach muscles: If your arms are bigger than your thighs, you're not well-muscled; you're a douche. There are these things called squats. You might try them sometime.

Groups: I understand that most people like to exercise with a partner (I don't). But this is a gym, not a social club. It doesn't take 15 minutes to do two sets of curls, so shut up and actually work out.

Maybe one of these days I will have the space available for a home gym. Until then, I will just have to deal with the idiots at the gym who claim to work out.

The Clash = Genius

One of the finest examples of song writing...ever. (The original video can be found here.)

GFC Winter '09 Update

Man, am I way behind on keeping everyone up to date with what's going with kickball. After making an appearance in the March issue of Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine, the GFC finished with their second consecutive regular season without a loss (a tie is not a loss). For those who are keeping track at home, that brings the streak up to 19 straight regular season games (17 wins and 2 ties). Even though another team went 8-0 to capture the regular season championship, we have already punched our ticket to Vegas and can play spoiler to other teams that have yet to secure a bid. Also, after two weeks of smack-talk and covert decorating of people's houses (re: getting Fawed), we managed to beat our incestuous arch rivals the Valley Girls in what was probably one of the most well-played games I have been involved in.

Monday brought the start of the playoffs for this season. Since we were first in our conference, we were matched against the last-place team in the other conference, Cobra Kai. Even though they had not won a game all season, rumor had it that they are a much tougher team than their record reflected. This time, the rumors were true. While we did not play bad, we did not play good either. In the end we did just enough to secure a 5-0 victory, moving on to face O! in the second round next Monday and what should be a double-header for us.

Neglect

Yes, it has been well over a month since my last post. Have I been too busy? Kind of, but not that busy. Have I been too lazy? Probably more so than I will ever admit. That being said, stay tuned for some much needed fresh posts.

GFC Winter '09: Week 4

This week we drew yet another new team that has not won a game this season. Should be another easy win, right? The full moon should have been a sign of things to come. They started off the 1st inning with a couple of runs by capitalizing on a couple defensive errors. Then the popups started. We did manage to push through a run in the 3rd, but entered the 5th inning down a run with our 14-game regular season winning streak on the line. Thanks to some timely kicking (and a sweet bunt by myself) we tied the game, but could not take the lead. With the specter of having the field lights turned off at any moment, we got three quick outs to eek out a tie, keeping our streak alive. Next week we play one of our arch rivals, Uno Mas.

GFC Winter '09: Week 3

We played a brand new team this week. The results were not surprising. Even though we won 5-0, it could have (and probably should have) been much worse, considering we left about 800 people on base. They dropped a lot of fly balls and we did not take advantage. I think they may have advanced a runner to third in one inning, but to quite honest I don't remember; I don't think they had multiple runners on more than once. Next week we play yet another brand new team. There is a good chance we will win. Not like we've won 14 straight regular season games or anything.

GFC Winter '09: Week 2

After two weeks worth of delays thanks to President's Day and some untimely rain, it was time to get back to playing some kickball. Week 2 brought a rematch of our Summer '08 quarterfinal playoff game against Feets Of Fury. The first inning saw us fall behind 2-0, but the fireworks were just starting. As the second inning began and we started to acquire baserunners, the Feets pitcher and catcher collided in one of the most violent collisions I have seen in quite some time. After taking a few minutes to let them get straightened out (the catcher was fine, the pitcher needed stitches), play resumed and we busted open the proverbial flood gates for ten runs over the remainder of the game. With the final score of 10-4, we seem to have found a way to generate offense unlike before. And with our next opponent being a brand new team, it would stand to reason that the runs will continue to pile up for us.