It Was Blood

Big news out of Red Sox Nation this week. No, it's not that we're in first place in a division that is getting rapidly weaker as our bats are coming out of their winter slumber, or the fact that The Dais-Man is making his first start at the Toilet tonight, or that Josh Beckett now has 5 wins from 5 starts. No, this week, we focused on whether Curt Schilling painted his sock in the 2004 ALCS to make it look like he was bleeding.

And why are focused on this "story?" Because new Orioles announcer Gary Thorne is a delightfully ignorant asshat who apparently couldn't pick sarcasm out of a crowded room with two hands and a flashlight. Thorne was chatting in the Red Sox clubhouse before yesterday's game with Doug "Cassus Belli" Mirabelli about summary topics which are probably not that interesting when Dougie Who Hits Bombs volunteered the "information" about the Sock which turned Schilling into both a baseball god and a folk hero.

Then, of course, every other ninny sportswriter, not having any copy to actually put in a paper yesterday, picked up the story and it blew out of control.

In response, Schilling has posted a reaction on his blog, 38 Pitches. Here's my favorite part:

"If you have the nuts, or the guts, grab an orthopedic surgeon, have them suture your ankle skin down to the tissue covering the bone in your ankle joint, then walk around for 4 hours. After that go find a mound, throw a hundred or so pitches, run over, cover first a few times. When you’re done check that ankle and see if it bleeds. It will."

I mean, how ballsy is that? Seriously. So, Gary Thorne, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

People are Creative (Or: Why I Love YouTube)

The Mii Lebowski.



Hilarious.

Also, this is why I love Mystery Science Theater 3000:



Anyway, I'm off to the Sox-Yanks at Fenway. You can be relatively sure there'll be a post about it later. Hopefully not involving any Yankee fans running afoul of "Punch Sideiron" or "Big McLargehuge."

Thirsty Thursday: 2001 Paul Jaboulet Ainé, Beaumes-de-Venise, Côtes-du-Rhône Villages, France

As we draw this exceptionally long and tiring week to a close, it's time for another wine review. I decided to go back to basics this week, and take a look at an affordable wine from one of the Motherland of Wine's oldest and most storied regions, the Rhone Valley.

Here are the notes.

Faint nose is met by a smooth palate, both of which are dominated by vanilla spice with fruit only barely noticeable. Good concentration of flavors after the wine opens up a little (at six years in the bottle and 14% alcohol, this wine will need 20 minutes or so before its drinkable...learned that lesson the hard way), but the astringent nature of the wine still tends to mask the flavors which seem overly soft. The finish is barely there, and seems to evaporate almost immediately.

Overall: 84, Purchased at Cambridge Wine and Spirits, Fresh Pond, Cambridge, MA. $11.99 on sale.

We Are Virginia Tech

I wasn't able to catch all of today's convocation in Blacksburg, I had to work on a project for the balance of the afternoon. In one of my breaks, however, I flipped over to CNN's coverage just in time to hear Nikki Giovanni, the noted poet and English professor at Virginia Tech deliver an incredibly moving, and powerful work to the community gathered there. Let me put it this way, anytime you can make an arena full of people in the darkest depths of their mourning and shock and sadness stand up, clap their hands and affirm at the top of their lungs who they are, you're doing your job.

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We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend to cry, and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it. But neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS. Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army.

Neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water. Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands, being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized.

No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hand to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be.

We are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Blacksburg

We still don't know all the details of what happened this morning on the campus of Virginia Tech. What we do know is that this morning's incident was a tragedy of massive proportions that will affect this nation for years to come. The worst part may yet be, however, the thought that any of us in college could have been those students in Norris Hall.

We don't know, and it's easy to second guess the response of the University administration and police at this point without all the facts, but we do not know if this horror could have been prevented. College campuses are an open place, where young people come and go as they please, as they should. But that allows for the possibility that situations like today could take place. That someone acting alone could take over a building and empty a magazine of bullets and reign destruction and terror down upon innocent students.

And then reload.

And reload again.

And again.

But today is not a day to talk about campus security. Or gun control. Or the culture of cyclical violence in America. Those are important debates. And as this is America, we will have them. But we will have them tomorrow and the next day and beyond.

Today, we must remember the dead and help give strength to the living. Because they endured a scene of unimaginable terror, one that no one should ever face. My heart, and I hope those of all Americans and especially those of fellow students, is in Blacksburg tonight.

Thirsty Thursday: 2004 Kumkani Pinotage, Stellenbosch, South Africa

Yes, I know it's Friday morning. But the title remains. If you're having lamb for Easter, this wine would be magnificent. Or, if you're just looking for something to sip on this cold New England weekend, this wine would do well in that endeavor as well. I wish I had discovered this wine while I was in South Africa, so that I could have visited the vineyard in Stellenbosch. Alas, I didn't, so I suppose I'll have to go back. Anyway, the notes:

The first thing I noticed about this wine was the excellent color concentration. Brilliant, shimmering maroon color in the glass with salmon ring when tipped. The nose and palate have delightful hints of raspberry and other summer berry flavors which add lightness to the earthy backbone of the Pinotage grape. The taste is well balanced across the palate, and the finish seems to linger for hours, as you bask in the warm glow of this light-bodied yet hearty wine.

Overall: 94, Purchased at Cambridge Wine and Spirits (formerly Mall Discount Liquors), Fresh Pond, Cambridge, $14.99.

XBox Hero (With Stars in My Eyes)

I bought an XBox last night. It was an impulse buy, but I challenge any of you to not do the same thing. My roommate Jon's friend called him up, offering his XBox for $50 as he needed to buy some peripherals for his new Wii. Jon, being an idiot, passed on the offer. So I made it my business to jump at it.

Now, on the face of it, $50 for an XBox is a steal. But this ain't no ordinary XBox. No, the kid selling it is a tech guru who got the thing modified so that it has a 60GB hard drive which can download any XBox game on to it and have forever. It came packed with MVP Baseball 2005, Rugby 2005, Tony Hawk 3 and a bunch of other stuff. Oh yeah, and it has emulators so I can play games going back to old school Nintendo.

This purchase is one of, if not the best, I have ever made. And yes, I may never leave the house again.