October 2006 Archives

Today is a special day. It's not only Halloween, it's also NaNoWriMo Eve. In the spirit of The O.C. - a show I no longer watch and sadly don't seem to miss, but will continue to make reference to long after it's hip or appropriate (like now) - I've decided to combine the two non-holidays into one super non-holiday. Therefore, I officially proclaim today HalloWriMo!

Wait... maybe it would be better if I try the other combination. Ahem. Therefore, I officially proclaim today NaNoWeen! Uh, no... let's stick with HalloWriMo.

Anyway, since the local kids will be taking care of the Halloween half of today - wearing costumes, wandering through the neighborhood and asking for free goodies from complete strangers, I'm gladly shouldering responsibility for the NaNoWriMo half of things.

Instead of passing out fun size candy this year, I'll be passing out fun size thesauri to the trick-or-treaters who come knocking. I'll also be covering the house with disposable tarps in anticipation of the egging that is sure to follow, result, ensue and come after.

On the front doorstep are two pumpkins I specifically carved for the combined celebration. One depicts a flaming typewriter. The other depicts Stephen King, the most prolific, scary-looking author I could think of after an intense three seconds of brainstorming.

Thanks to the magic of GarageBand, instead of playing the same old tape of spooky sound effects, I've created an mp3 that is certain to send the children (and parents) screaming. Imagine the staccato of hunt and peck typing set against the audio backdrop of a torrential rainstorm periodically punctuated by a clap of thunder or the howl of a werewolf. Layered on top of this is a voice, not unlike Vincent Price's, reading an exceptionally awful 50,000-word excerpt from the NaNo novel I wrote last November. That reminds me, I need to buy earplugs on the way home.

Of course, after the parade of candy-seeking-thesaurus-receiving youngsters dies down and I've disposed of the yolk-drenched tarps, it will be time to get down to the business of preparing myself for this year's novel-writing challenge. Preparation primarily involves extracting every memory related to the past three NaNoWriMos and placing them in the Pensieve I keep tucked away in the hall closet.

I understand Apple already has a sleek, portable version of the handy contraption. J.K. Rowling filed a lawsuit preventing them from calling it an iPensieve, so the company chose to call it an iPod instead. That may explain why the people you see wearing the popular devices in public stare so vacantly into space. Music isn't going in, memories are coming out.

Anyway, good luck to all those participating in this year's NaNoWriMo! May your words and creativity flow freely. And lest I forget, Happy HalloWriMo!

Over the last several days, I learned

> how America spends its weekends (and money). Hint: visit the premium outlet stores. It's the affordable alternative for families wanting to escape the confines of their dwellings. It's where ordinary folks embark on a pilgrimage to find bargains and deals and soon find themselves in debt, having cleared out the clearance sections of Coach, Banana Republic and Gap along the way. It's where Ma & Pa Middleclass, their five kids, Granny and Aunty Uphilda train during the off-season in preparation for next summer's vacation to an overpriced amusement park. An outlet mall is the perfect place to practice. There's an abundance of strollers and a scarcity of open parking stalls and benches. Late hours are kept, lines are long, restrooms are strategically hidden and prerecorded announcements are multilingual and saccharine. The outlet mall is also where I happened to find carpenter jeans priced at 2 for $25 and a Haydn CD with two symphonies for just $3. So, I'm not complaining. I'm just explaining where you can find America (and me) on the weekends.

> good baseball players who are short aren't short; they're scrappy. If I were a ballplayer, sportswriters would mock my inability to play and call me short. And that's if I was lucky enough to be noticed in the first place. If I were any good, the same sportswriters would avoid overt references to my stature and simply call me scrappy, which is the adjective they're required by law to use to describe players possessing less than seventy-two inches of height and the rare ability to reach base consistently. The journalist who writes an article about a player like Ichiro Suzuki, Craig Counsell or David "Sparkplug" Eckstein without describing him as scrappy or alluding to his scrappiness is a journalist who quickly learns the price of omission is his or her byline. By the way, after St. Louis won the World Series last week, the League chose Eckstein, the Cardinals scrappy shortstop, as the series MVP. Maybe in honor of his well-deserved award, he'll receive a temporary reprieve from the adjective. Of course, it could be worse. At least writers aren't calling short players scrapie, which I understand is a fatal viral disease that afflicts sheep.

> Daylight Saving Time (DST) doesn't mean one gains an hour. It means one recoups the hour one lost six months ago. DST is a sleight-of-hand magician that slips a quarter from your pocket and attempts to amaze you as he produces it from your ear with flourish. Where he slips the flourish from is anyone's guess and a matter best left to somebody else's imagination.

As far as I can tell, DST also means it gets darker sooner. Yesterday, I was basking in the morning light streaming through the window, enjoying my morning stoup of coffee and reading my neighbor's morning funnies, when it dawned on me the sunlight was fading. I rushed to the front door for a better look, but by the time I reached it, I couldn't see a thing and had to grope the darkness for the doorknob. A sudden gasp and slap to the face told me I had found it. I wrenched the door open and stepped outside to see the last of the sun dip behind the western hills. Since I was still clutching the funnies and had already read my favorite strips, I decided to take advantage of the blackness. The blackness, wise to my dalliance with the darkness, would have none of me, so I dashed over to my neighbor's driveway, tucked the comics back in with the classifieds and raced back to the house before anyone was the wiser.

Forgive me, journal, for I have sinned. It has been three months (and eleven books) since my last confession. Since January 1st, I've read forty books, which means I'm only twelve books away from my goal of 52 books in 52 weeks. I realize I have to step up the pace if I hope to finish a dozen books in the remaining two months of the year, but I haven't reached the point of desperation yet. You'll know I've reached it if Lynne Cheney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Terrell Owens or any other recognizable celebrity-turned-children's-book-author appears on my list.

Anyway, as usual, each book is rated on a scale from 0 to 10. Anything receiving a 6.5 or greater, I would recommend. I apologize in advance for my narrow selection of books. I must admit that I've gotten rather hooked on a few writers and topics, which is good for me, but bad for anybody hoping for a more varied assortment of books. In no particular order, except in which they were read:

1. Upon the Altar of the Nation by Harry S. Stout (5.9)
2. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde (8.1)
3. Flash for Freedom by George MacDonald Fraser (7.5)
4. Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (7.4)
5. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (7.2)
6. Call Each River Jordan by Owen Parry (7.6)
7. The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (8.2)
8. State of Denial by Bob Woodward (6.9)
9. Homegrown Democrat by Garrison Keillor (8.0)
10. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (7.5)
11. American Gospel by Jon Meacham (6.4)

As you can see, I've been unhealthily obsessed with Jasper Fforde. I know I'm three years late to the bandwagon, but now that I've jumped aboard, I can't get enough of his Thursday Next series. His books are inventive, silly and a trip to read. If you aren't familiar with his work and want a good laugh, I would definitely recommend checking out The Eyre Affair to get a taste of his writing and a tour of the alternate universe he created.

I'm a huge fan of the new show Heroes, but every time I hear the voice at the end of the show's commercials whisper the phrase, "Save the cheerleader... save the world," I laugh. I can't help it. Visions of a Bring It On / X-Men crossover flash across my brain.

Heroes is a graphic novel (a.k.a. comic book) masquerading as a television show. To successfully pass itself off and survive on TV, it needed to adapt to its new environment and lose some of its conventions in order to gain acceptance from a mainstream audience. In other words, it had to sacrifice spandex. Like Smallville (that other comic book superhero show, now in its sixth season), the heroes of this show don't wear outfits made from that fashionably elastic, yet easy-to-wash material. Instead, they wear what any modern, self-respecting ordinary-person-discovering-extraordinary-abilities would wear: Abercrombie & Fitch.

It's a fun show to watch. It's slow at times, but the story moves steadily enough to keep me interested as characters discover or develop their abilities, new heroes or villains emerge and the mystery surrounding the heroes' ultimate mission - saving the cheerleader, the world and any last-minute items the creator can think up - reveals itself.

Last Friday, I heard Garrison Keillor, on his Writer's Almanac, read a poem by Robert Pinsky in honor of Pinsky's birthday. It's called "Samurai Song" and I post it here so I won't lose it.

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made
Audacity my roof. When I had
No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.
When I had no ears I thought.
When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made
Care my father. When I had
No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made
Quiet my friend. When I had no
Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made
My voice my temple. I have
No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune
Is my means. When I have
Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment
Is my strategy. When I had
No lover I courted my sleep.

Song my mind... "Polkarama!" by Weird Al

His polkas are accordian-intensive medleys, musical snapshots, capturing the pop music landscape of the day. His latest polka is like a distilled version of a Now That's What I Call Music! album, but with more oom-pah. Just for my own handy reference, the artists and songs featured in "Polkarama!" include (to the best of my knowledge):

• Black Eyed Peas - "Let's Get It Started"
• Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
• Weezer - "Beverly Hills"
• Coldplay - "Speed of Sound"
• Modest Mouse - "Float On"
• Gorillaz - "Feel Good"
• Pussycat Dolls - "Don't Cha"
• The Killers - "Somebody Told Me"
• 50 Cent - "Candy Shop"
• Snoop Dogg - "Drop It Like It's Hot"
• Rihanna - "Pon De Replay"
• Kanye West - "Gold Digger"

If it weren't for the rain delay in St. Louis, I would be watching Game 4 of the World Series on television right now. But since it's raining and I haven't written anything in a couple days, let me get you caught up on what has happened so far.

Think of this as a service (an unfunded, get-what-you-pay-for service). My service's unofficial slogan could be: I watch baseball so you don't have to. To keep expenses low, I fired my editor, so cliches, baseball jargon and references to games being "crucial" have been left in.

In crucial Game 1 (STL 7, DET 2), rookie Cardinals pitcher, Anthony Reyes, pitched eight innings and allowed just two runs - one in the first and one in the ninth. Other notable plays in the game included:

• Albert Pujol's two-run homer in the third inning. This is notable because first base was open and any other team would have intentionally walked Pujols. Instead, Detroit pitched to him and paid the price.
• The bizarre obstruction call in the sixth inning. Scott Rolen collided with the Tigers third baseman, Brandon Inge, who was standing in the base path between third and home. Inge was charged with obstruction and Rolen scored.

In crucial Game 2 (DET 3, STL 1), veteran Tigers pitcher, Kenny Rogers, pitched eight innings of shutout baseball. There was some controversy regarding a strange brown smudge on Rogers' palm in the first inning, but he washed his hand between innings and continued to pitch effectively the rest of the game. Detroit's closer, Todd Jones, nearly lost it for his team when he came on in the ninth. He gave up a run-scoring double to Jim Edmonds and loaded the bases before getting Yadier Molina to ground out for the final out of the game.

Finally, in crucial Game 3 (STL 5, DET 0), Chris Carpenter, the Cardinal ace, threw three eight shutout innings against the Tigers. The most memorable play of the game came in the seventh inning. David Eckstein and Preston Wilson were on first and second with nobody out. The Detroit pitcher, Joel Zumaya, got Pujols to hit a groundball back to him. Instead of throwing it to second for an easier double play, Zumaya threw the ball to third. The throw was bad, went by Inge and rolled into the bullpen. Two runs scored and widened St. Louis' lead.

So, the Cardinals enter crucial Game 4 with a one-game lead in this best of seven series. As I conclude this entry, the rain continues to fall in St. Louis, which may mean no baseball tonight.

Because I had so much fun making the first video, I made a second one just for laughs. I apologize ahead time, knowing full well that what I present will likely offend anyone with a sense of taste. It will likely also offend anyone with eyes or ears. If that happens to be you, I'm sorry. Of course, I could simply call this Art and thumb my nose at an unappreciative public that simply "doesn't get me", but I think I need a minimum of three videos to qualify as a Misunderstood Artist. Once again, enjoy!

The embedded video you see below is my experiment with iMovie and GarageBand. I took a clip I shot at the top of Alta Peak, added sound effects and assembled a jingle to go with it. I say assemble because all I really did was take various drum, bass and banjo loops and piece them together into one fine mess. Enjoy!

In the midst of everything going on last week, there was one bright spot: we adopted a cat. Her name is Abby. Actually, when we got her from Town Cats, a local feline adoption shelter, her name was Heather, but we didn't think the name fit her. (It's hard to explain.)

M brought her home last Friday, but we didn't come up with her new name until Saturday. We were drawing blanks, so I suggested naming her after one of the doctors on Grey's Anatomy, but Meredith, Miranda and Isobel didn't seem like matches. Addison was a possibility, but we know somebody's daughter by that name. I'm sure the parents would be just fine if they discovered the name of our cat, but for a fleeting moment, the worst-case scenario ran through my head.

Addison's Mother (petting the cat): Oh, what a beautiful cat. My Addison loves cats. What's its name?
Me (laughing nervously): Her name? Her name is, well, it's (mumbling) Addison.
A.M. (stops): What?
Me (looking at the ground): Huh?
A.M.: I thought you just said her name is Addison.
Me: Right, that's what you probably thought I said.
A.M.: You realize that my daughter's name means a great deal to me and my husband. She's named in honor of his dear, sweet mother. She recently died after long, painful battle with ovarian cancer. Now what am I going to tell him. "Oh, honey, by the way, our daughter and your mother now share the same name as a cat!"
Me: I'm so sorry, really, I am. No offense was meant, but if it's any comfort, we didn't name her after either one of them, but after a character on Grey's Anatomy, you know, the show.
A.M. (glaring): ...
Me: Not that there's any reason why we would be ashamed to name it after your relatives. Addison, the cat that is, is extremely smart, just like your daughter. And she has a kind disposition not unlike your husband's mother, I'm sure. Plus, she's extremely clean whenever she uses a litter box. And okay, did I say Addison? I misspoke. I meant Abbison, but we call her Abby for short.

Actually, after we didn't find a suitable name in Grey's Anatomy, we turned to another medical show for inspiration. Looking through the list of characters on E.R., we found Abby, the character played by Maura Tierney on the show and it just seemed to work.

The past week has been an adjustment period for everybody. Abby took a little while getting used to her new litter box, bed and "kitty condo". Since I'm allergic to cats, I've been getting used to popping an allergy pill in the morning. I'm also getting used to cleaning the litter box and remembering not to let her sit on me unless I have something to protect my lap from her claws. That's all small stuff, though. Abby is a welcome addition.

I heard a story on the radio this morning about an elementary school, south of Boston (Willet Elementary School in Attleboro to be exact), banning tag and other unsupervised chasing games during recess, fearing students would get hurt and parents would sue. The quote I want to remember, the one that made me shake my head in disbelief and wonder if I was listening to the "fake news" was, "Recess is a time when accidents can happen."

After a little digging online, I discovered the story was authentic. I found this article in The Sun Chronicle, a newspaper serving the greater Attleboro area in Massachusetts. It broke the news on Tuesday. From there, word spread across the country on the four winds of information (web, television, newspaper and radio).

By the way, the weakest of the winds is radio, especially morning drive radio, where 58 minutes of every hour are dedicated to banter, prank calls and a heavy rotation of Fergie and Nickelback songs. The remaining two minutes are for traffic updates twenty minutes too late and yesterday's news gleaned from the web. So, it was a minor miracle that I heard the story there first.

I also discovered the quote about recess wasn't made up, but was actually said by the school's principal, according to this Chicago Sun Times article.

While it would be easy to poke fun at the quote (which I believe the principal got straight out of Obviousness for Dummies) or the ban itself, that path already seems well-worn (and deeply rutted), as evidenced by this representative editorial in the Boston Herald and a small sampling of blogs. The opinions expressed are a three-part harmony of:

1. What will they ban next during recess? Movement?
2. This is why our kids are obese.
3. Schoolyard stories of yore; where kids got burns from metal slides, concussions from tetherballs to the head and splinters from tanbark and still grew up to be mostly normal adults.

I think the funniest aspect of the whole story is contained in the following paragraph from The Sun Chronicle article...

People from all over the country, including New York, Wisconsin and California, left comments on The Sun Chronicle's Web site - the story generated the heaviest response of any story ever posted on the site - and sent e-mails to reporters.

If you're the editor of the paper, you must be scratching your head and asking yourself, "Of all the stories we've ever printed, of all the news we've ever broken, this is the one that got people's attention? We write about health care and social security. Nothing. We write about privacy issues and habeas corpus. Still nothing. We write about war, torture, terrorism, natural disasters, politics, religion and more. Not a single peep. But we write a tiny story about a local school banning tag and everybody reacts. What gives?"

"It's a heroic challenge to write a comic essay of 800 words every week for a newspaper, and I take that very seriously. Editors may disagree with me, but I don't think that I, as a newspaper reader, really need someone else to weigh in on Social Security reform. I have read both sides and will continue to do so, but I don't think I need a new voice there. I do think, however, that it's a lovely thing for a newspaper to carry a column somewhere that people turn to in the expectation that it will make them smile, and maybe laugh."
- Garrison Keillor. "Q & A with Garrison Keillor." 28 June 2005.

I clipped that quote from an article I read on the Prairie Home Companion website, which not only contains an archive of past radio shows, but also an archive of Garrison Keillor's writings.

Keillor has a very informal, stream-of-consciousness style that is soothing in its imagery, yet biting in its commentary. Most of his sentences look similar to mine, except they're funnier (which is probably true of most writers' sentences, but let's stay on topic).

Some of his sentences, though, the ones I find most satisfying, are those that don't stop. They aren't sprinters racing for the period, but long distance runners with the endurance (and punctuation) to go for lines without tiring. One of my favorites comes from a recent article, "The Cranky Man's Guide to Contentment"...

"It's a beautiful descent in a 737, into the Bitterroot Valley, following the Clark Fork River, along the Bison Range, on a perfect golden autumn day, under a high blue sky, and I hiked around town, the air sweet and dry, and was sort of overwhelmed by the perfection of it -- the old courthouse, the train depot, Mount Jubilee and Mount Sentinel rising up, the neon bars, the funky festivity of a college town -- and I imagined living there and finding contentment and writing a book about trout fishing and becoming a wise old beloved figure who is found in a booth at the Oxford Cafe at 6:15 every morning offering Western bon mots over the bran flakes instead of a cantankerous old man which is what I am."

It's a 130-word beauty and a timely source of NaNoWriMo inspiration. It also makes me laugh and this has been a week when I could use a little laughter. Thankfully, Guy Noir skits, news from Lake Wobegon and paragraph-length sentences by Keillor have fulfilled that need (unlike postseason baseball and news about North Korean and Iranian nuclear crises).

Reading Keillor got me wondering, too, if I could do what he does or what Dave Barry does or what S.J. Perelman did: write a comic essay every week. Maybe, to begin with and in the spirit of NaNoWriMo, I wouldn't worry if it was funny or not, but focus on making it 800 words long. After I succeeded in writing such an essay several weeks in a row, I would concern myself with infusing it with humor, or something that passes for humor, like the stuff on Saturday Night Live.

Obviously, this is only idle rambling, thinking out loud, something to temporarily distract me from the stresses of life that seem unusually heavy this week. It's a way to keep me from obsessing or complaining because when it comes right down to it, it really isn't that bad and, as Keillor says, it could be worse. So, instead, I'm just going to handle my stress with a healthy dose of humor.

About a month ago, I stumbled across a site called DailyLit. Essentially, it's a book-by-email service. Its working theory is that most people "spend hours each day reading email, but don't find the time to read books". Instead of trying to get you to spend less time with your inbox and more time with a good book, it simply send the book to your inbox.

DailyLit boasts a 200-title collection of public domain books. Each book is broken down into five-minute fragments. Currently, I'm subscribed to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Personal Memoirs of General U.S. Grant. The former is divided into 131 parts, while the latter is broken into 305 parts. Every morning, I receive a fragment from each.

It's a different way to enjoy a book. While it seems a bit ridiculous to stretch a book out over several months, it makes perfect sense for folks who don't have huge blocks of time to set aside for reading. And for those who have a few extra minutes and want to get through a book faster, DailyLit offers a link in each email to send them the next fragment. I'm sorry for sounding like a commercial, but I just felt the need to rave about the site.

Yesterday, my maternal grandmother passed away. She was 76. She was a fiercely private person, so what I know of her past never came directly from her, but from my mom. My grandmother was born in Hong Kong and came to this country in the 1950s, when she married my grandfather. She had my mom in Hong Kong, but was unable to bring her with her, so she left my mom in the care of her own mother. Several years later, my mom would finally make it to America.

My grandmother spoke some English, but was most comfortable speaking Cantonese. She was a tiny woman with enormous force of will. Her way was the way. If you can imagine the might of Jerome "The Bus" Bettis in somebody the size of Eva Longoria, you would have my grandmother.

Growing up, I never understood how she remained so tiny, especially since whenever we had dinner with her (usually at a Chinese restaurant), she always seemed to pile her plate high with food. It was only when I was older that I noticed how she would sneakily siphon her food onto my grandfather's plate during the meal.

My grandmother wasn't an affectionate woman in the physical sense. She didn't do hugs. She would pat me on the shoulder now and then, but that was the extent of it. Her way of showing affection came in the form of shopping. We would often visit Mervyns or Gottschalks and she would insist I get something. If it was summer, she would insist I choose new t-shirts or shorts. And if I could convince her I didn't need them, she would insist I pick out a new sweater or jacket for the winter. If my sister or I continued to refuse, my grandmother would mention something to my mom in Cantonese. Then my mom would lecture us about showing respect and tell us to pick something.

My grandmother loved dogs and she owned four them in her life. Three of them were named Bunny (all females) and one was named Happy (a male). I never met Bunny I, but got to know Bunny II as a kid and Bunny III and Happy as a teenager. Since I'm allergic to dogs (and cats), Saturday visits to my grandparents meant hours of fun, as well as sneezing, watery eyes and difficulty breathing. To minimize my symptoms, I would be quarantined play on my grandparents' dog-free, rooftop patio (where they kept a table tennis table and miniature pool table).

A lot of my memories of my grandmother come from earlier in my life. Due to her advancing age and health issues (which she never shared in any detail), we saw less and less of her with each passing year. It wasn't that we didn't want to see her, but she would often refuse to be seen, as though she was ashamed to be in less than perfect health. Before this weekend, it had been nearly two years since I had last seen her.

I regret not being able to visit her more often, but I find a little consolation knowing that I was able to see her, thank her and tell her I loved her one last time before she left us. I also find comfort knowing she is no longer suffering or in pain. She and my grandfather are a big reason I am who I am and have what I have. I will miss her dearly.

North Korea, watch
how Typhoon Sanctions threatens
like a flagging storm

It was the bottom of the ninth inning. The A's were trailing the Tigers by three runs. In the Real World, Oakland would have gone down in order, but for a moment, thanks to a high improbability field, Game 2 of the ALCS entered Sports Movie World. (They would've entered The Twilight Zone, but they were denied entrance by the Alternate Universe Border Patrol.)

In Sports Movie World, common sense and the law of physics are substituted with moral lessons and tense drama. So, instead of simply going down in order - thereby dashing any hope for an emotionally cathartic comeback - the A's loaded the bases with two outs and brought Frank Thomas, the hulking home run hitter and potential winning run, to the plate.

Unbeknownst to Thomas, though, as soon as he crossed the chalk of the batter's box, he accidentally compromised the high improbability field sustaining the existence of the alternate universe.

Had it only been a more unlikely hero stepping to the plate. Had it been a player with a low likelihood of success, someone who had recently gone on the disabled list with a lower back strain and whose prospects of returning this season were close to zero. In other words, had it only been Bobby Crosby, the game would have remained in Sports Movie World a few minutes longer.

To the overwhelming cheers of a standing crowd, Crosby, in a full back brace, would have stiffly hobbled to the plate. After a gut-wrenching swing at an outside pitch, a stomach-twisting swing at a pitch in on the hands and a life-affirming pep talk by Ken Macha as Crosby writhed on the ground in pain, he would have stood in, jaw set, tears in his eyes, and knocked the next pitch out of McAfee Coliseum for a game-ending gram slam.

But that didn't happen. The game was back in the Real World. Instead, Frank Thomas took a mighty swing at a pitch and hit a shallow fly ball to centerfield that Curtis Granderson easily caught for the last out of the game. The A's lost.

Oakland is now down two games as the series heads to Detroit. With any luck, the growing improbability of the A's beating the Tigers will cause another shift to Sports Movie World. If their hitting, pitching and fielding fail to return, a miracle in an alternate universe may be their only hope.

Funding for this entry provided by the Pseudo-Science Babble in Baseball Coalition, a non-profit organization promoting the mashing of science fiction and sports into a new and pulpy derivative genre.

Over the long weekend, the Athletics, Tigers and Mets swept their opponents in division series play. Oakland's advancement was sweet because, well, for all practical (and postseason) purposes, they're the hometown team. The Tiger and Met victories were particularly sweet since that meant the elimination of the Yankees and Dodgers, respectively.

After the Yankees lost, rumors spread that George Steinbrenner would fire Joe Torre. Fortunately, the rumors weren't true. Today, Torre announced in a press conference that he'll managing the team next season.

Of course, I'm happy Joe has a job next year, but I would have been happier if he had announced that job would be in San Francisco in 2007. With no chance of that fantasy being fulfilled, it'll be interesting to see who Brian Sabean hires as the new Giants skipper. Lou Piniella is a possibility, but with so many teams wooing him, he may be a long shot. Other names I've seen tossed around include Ron Wotus, Ron Washington, Bob Brenly, Bud Black and Dave Righetti.

As I had hoped, the Dodgers went away quickly, quietly and without humiliating themselves too badly. In fact, they only had one embarrassing moment. It came in Game 1, when in a bizarre series of events, two runners (Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew) were thrown out at home plate, one right after the other, in the same play. If three runners had been cut down in a row, the team would have been forced to change its name from the Dodgers to the Los Angeles Lemmings.

By the way, San Diego was the only losing team to avoid the sweep. I'm proud of them for snatching a win from St. Louis. Next year's goal: win two games. It's all about baby steps.

Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between Oakland and Detroit is tonight. Barry Zito faces Nate Robertson. I'm hoping to get home in time to catch at least part of the game on television.

Finally, on a sad note, the world lost Buck O'Neil, a baseball great, on Friday, at the age of 94. Earlier this year, he had been conspicuously excluded from the list of 17 Negro League inductees into baseball's Hall of Fame. An ambassador of the game and one of the last survivors from baseball's segregated era, he accepted an invitation to speak at the induction ceremony despite the snub.

I remember first seeing him in Ken Burns' Baseball. He always had a smile, a twinkle in his eyes and a gentle and affable way about him. He could also tell a good story. I immediately took a liking to him. His omission from the Hall of Fame still rubs me the wrong way and I secretly harbor the hope that they'll come to their senses and induct him. Baseball was blessed to have somebody like Buck and I'm saddened by his passing.

Yesterday was a company holiday. The official reason was to observe Columbus Day, but I used it to unofficially recognize Thanksgiving Day in Canada.

It was a simple affair. I enjoyed a maple macchiato while listening to a hockey game (the Sharks won their third in a row). I also paused to list three Canadian comedians I like (Mike Myers, Phil Hartman, Eugene Levy) and one I like less (Howie Mandel) just to be fair.

By the way, Levy and Christ Guest are set to release a new movie this fall called For Your Consideration (official site). While it features the same cast as past Guest films (Catherine O'Hara, Michael McKean and Fred Willard, to name three), it abandons Guest's trademark mockumentary style in favor of a more conventional storytelling approach. Thankfully, there still appears to be plenty of improvisation, which is the heart of his comedies.

For a good laugh and as a prelude to the premiere, I should add This is Spinal Tap, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind to the top of my queue for a Guest and Co. movie marathon.

And since I can't seem to find a decent link for the maple macchiato I mentioned above, I'll link to Starbucks Gossip, an entertaining blog I stumbled across during my search, instead.

I know this is going to sound like hyperbole, but Saturday's hike to Alta Peak in Sequoia National Park was the hardest I had ever undertaken. Of course, before B and I set out for it, I had dismissed it as just another hike up just another mountain. One might say I was in a state of denial - disregarding the facts in front of me, the physical realities described to me, and the warnings coming from various mental quarters in my head. Denial is a good way to get in a bad situation. Thankfully, I didn't have a famous Washington Post editor/reporter present to chronicle it all.

As most hiking guides describe it, the hike to Alta Peak is a 13.8-mile trek with an elevation gain of 4,000 feet. Well, that wasn't enough for us. Instead of driving to Wolverton, the described starting point, we started from our campsite in Lodgepole, which added 3.2 miles and 500 feet of elevation to our journey.

We started out around 7:30 in the morning from Lodgepole, which has an elevation of 6,700 feet. It was still chilly outside and the sun had barely risen. For the first four miles of the hike, we were in shade; the giant forest protected us from direct light.

The ascent along the trail to Wolverton was gentle and steady. At Wolverton, we picked up the Lakes Trail, a popular backpacking trail, that crossed a number of dry or trickling creeks and passed a few small, ragged meadows.

At the next trail junction, we turned right onto the Panther Gap Trail. (I keep calling it Jaguar Gap and I don't know why.) We soon reached Panther Gap, which offered the first real view of an amazing tree-covered canyon that stretched to the horizon.

We turned left along the Alta Trail and followed it along the canyon edge. The terrain became rockier and steeper. At the next junction, where the High Sierra Trail branched, we turned left and passed Mehrten Meadow.

We soon reached the final trail junction. The trail to the right led to Alta Meadow; the one to the left led up to Alta Peak. There were only two miles left, but about 2,000 feet left to climb. This is where my troubles began.

Up to that point, I had been keeping hydrated and feeling no ill effects from the elevation. We had been making good time. It was eleven o'clock and I was almost certain we could be at the top of Alta Peak by noon. But a half-mile past the Alta Meadow junction, I wasn't feeling so well. B got out ahead of me and he was soon out of sight.

Over the next series of switchbacks, various symptoms began to appear. Breathing became more difficult, my throat felt dry only moments after drinking water and my head began to throb to the beat of my heart. At one point, I just stopped and rested, hoping to recover a bit.

The further up I went, the slower my progress became. The distance I could cover without taking a break began to shorten. The trail finally entered an area where I could see the top of Alta Peak. I could also see B or a speck that I assumed was B. Judging from the steepness of the trail, I figured I had fallen at least twenty minutes behind him.

Thanks to the power of denial, the thought of giving up never crossed my mind. Turning back wasn't an option. It was just a matter of how long it was going to take to reach the summit. To fight the urge to keep stopping, I started bargaining with myself. "You can stop and drink some water after another hundred steps," I'd say. I would count a hundred steps, stop, drink water, wait for the throbbing to abate and then take another hundred steps.

After an eternity and a bit of boulder climbing, I was standing atop Alta Peak. The view was spectacular. To the south was the green canyon disappearing into mist. To the west, north and east, there seemed to be mountain ranges as far as the eye could see. To the east, where Mt. Whitney supposedly stood (though I couldn't see it), mountain peaks looked like ocean waves.

There wasn't a whole lot of room atop Alta Peak, which stands 11,204 feet above sea level. If you doubled the size of your office cubicle, tilted it at a fifteen-degree angle and imagined it a few thousand feet off the ground, you would have Alta Peak.

In a depression atop the peak, somebody had placed a metal box. I opened it to discover a lime green register and two or three pens. I made an entry in it to record I had been there. Of course, when I initially took the register from the box, the box tipped backwards and nearly went over the sheer side of the peak. That gave me a fright.

After about thirty minutes up there (or an hour in B's case), we began our descent. It was just after one in the afternoon. I took some Tylenol to help with the head throbbing and later used some moleskin on my left foot where I felt a blister coming on.

We returned essentially the way we came until we reached Panther Gap. From there, instead of returning down Panther Gap Trail, we continued along the Alta Trail and took the Long Meadow Trail back to Wolverton. The alternate path added at least a mile to our planned hike.

We got ourselves a bit turned around at Wolverton, but soon rediscovered the Lakes Trail and reached Lodgepole around 5:25 in the afternoon, which gave us twenty minutes to grab what we needed from camp and race over to the market center to take a hot shower before they closed for the day.

I will write about the lessons learned from this hike in another entry, but let me say that I would recommend this hike for experienced hikers, especially those who want to be equally challenged and rewarded and want to avoid the crowds. We saw a total of twelve people (and three dogs) the entire time we were out there.

More photos from the hike can be found on Flickr.

Last night, at the del.icio.us three-year + millionth-user bash I attended, somebody asked me what I blog about, which I must admit isn't something I'm asked often (or ever). So, of course, I had trouble answering it. I think I said something like, "Well, uh, at the moment, because the postseason just started, I'm writing about baseball, but I also write about hiking and stuff."

I suppose a better response (or at least a different response) would have been, "I write about life in general." If it catches my attention, piques my curiosity or seems worth remembering, I'll write about it.

Since quite a few things happened last night, it's all rather a mess in my head, so I thought the best way capture the parts I wanted to remember was to make a list.

• Last night was the regular blogger gathering at Barefoot Coffee Roasters.
• Elkit, Hank, Silvia, Kevin and Rich attended.
• According to Hank, Casa de Fruta, the monster-sized fruit stand on the outskirts of Hollister, hosts a Civil War reenactment every year. I hope to see it next summer.
• NaNoWriMo is nearly here. Elkit already ordered her NaNoWriMo shirt and mentioned there's even a special NaNoWriMo coffee blend this year. Now, all they need is special NaNoWriMo Skittles and I'm set.
• Due to the less-than-ideal furniture arrangement at Barefoot, a suggestion was made to hold one of the monthly blogger gatherings at the new It's A Grind near the Apple campus.
• Someone proposed a margarita night at Aqui in Willow Glen.
• Kevin highly recommended a podcast by Garrison Keillor called The Writer's Almanac.
• The de.licio.us event took place at the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale.
• I met a few friendly people - Andrew, Eszter and Richard - last night. (Since it was a del.icio.us event, I thought it more appropriate to link to their del.icio.us accounts rather than their blogs.)
• Rich and fling93 were also in attendance.
• I recognized some folks in the crowd, either from their blogs or their Flickr accounts, which reminded me of just how intertwined the various social networking sites are. The bees are busy cross-pollinating in this virtual garden.

That sums up my night and provides a relatively fresh sample of what I blog about.

At one point in September, the Giants came dangerously close to taking the lead in the National League wildcard race. Had they taken it, I doubt they would have known what to do with it.

For San Francisco, winning the wildcard would have been like winning a schoolyard brawl for the opportunity to face the class bully (a.k.a. the New York Mets). Sure, there's the elation of actually winning, but then there's the realization that the reward is a severe pounding and a view of the world from the inside of a trashcan.

Luckily, the Giants never had to face that "Oh, crap!" moment. No sooner were they within reach of the prize, they faded and faded fast, allowing their buddies in blue, the Dodgers, the chance to get creamed. It was a generous move. Few are those who would take such a dive for a rival friend.

With the manager, Felipe Alou, out, eleven players eligible for free agency and the shocking scientific revelation that the team doesn't actually revolve around Barry Bonds, San Francisco has a rare opportunity to build a young, promising team from scratch for next season.

Being from California, I tend to cheer for California teams... most of the time. This year's MLB postseason finds three teams from the state still in contention: Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles.

I don't know if I'll get a chance to hear the A's game today, but I listened to an audio feed of Game 1 yesterday. Behind the pitching of Barry Zito, who gave up just one run, and the hitting of Frank Thomas, who had two solo home runs, Oakland beat Minnesota by a score of 3-2. Later today, the Athletics have a chance to take a second game from the Twins in the best of five series. I'm pulling for the guys in yellow and green to make it to the World Series. It's about time they get it beyond the first round of the playoffs.

Yesterday, San Diego lost its first game to St. Louis. If I recall correctly, the last time the Padres represented the National League in the World Series (back in 1999), they were swept. I'm rooting for them to take at least one game from the Cardinals.

That leaves the Dodgers, the only California team I'm rooting against. They're set to play their first game against the Mets (a.k.a. the team from New York I like) this afternoon. I don't necessarily want to see Los Angeles humiliated (too badly), but it would nice if they went about losing quickly and quietly. There's no shame in losing efficiently, is there?

If I had my way, I would want the Athletics and the Mets to face each other in the World Series. But since getting my way is highly unlikely, I expect to see the Cardinals play against the Yankees in the final showdown of the season. We'll see.

By the way, Zito just started writing a blog this month; so did L.A.'s Derek Lowe. My favorite professional player blog is still David Wright's of the Mets. He's been blogging since the season began, so it's been fun to see the months unfold from his point of view.

Ever since I upgraded Movable Type, I've been having plug-in troubles and template problems. It has been quite an adventure repairing pages, fixing the "repairs" and then trying to repair what was broken in the first place. If something doesn't appear right (beyond the usual nonsense I write), please let me know. I'll try my best to "work the problem" or, if that fails, simply delete it.

I spent this weekend camping and hiking in Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks. It was my third visit to the jointly operated parks in four years. Three years ago, we stayed at Grant Grove. Two years ago, we camped at Cedar Grove. To change things up this year, B and I camped at Lodgepole in the Sequoia half of the park.

Since B had to work Friday morning, we left for the park in the afternoon and reached Lodgepole around 5:30 pm. The late arrival was fine except for the fact that the village showers close early in the fall. For whatever reason, they're only open from 9:00 am to 5:45 pm during the off-season.

Why they keep such short hours is a mystery to me. My guess is the rangers have a secret arrangement with the local black bears. In exchange for not eating visitors, the bears receive hot showers every night. Everybody wins. Campers don't get eaten, rangers don't get bad publicity for eaten campers and bears get hot showers on cold nights. And really, isn't it better to have dirty campers than devoured campers?

I suppose the only ones who really lose are the maintenance workers who have to spend the wee hours of the morning cleaning bear hair from the drains. So, to be more accurate, 98% of everybody wins, which isn't bad if you think about it (and you aren't a maintenance worker).

Considering the cost of a hot shower (minimum three dollars for eight minutes), the tight time constraint turned out to be less of an issue than how to obtain three dollars worth of quarters and not accidentally drop one down the drain (with all the bear hair) when trying to feed the shower meter.

After all that fun, we set up camp, ate hot meals around the campfire and went over the game plan for Saturday's big hike before retiring for the night.