My Four Worst Sports Blunders

My friend, Brad, brought up one of his worst sports experience his team getting their butts kicked in a county rec soccer game.

It got me thinking about my own "plays of the weak." Here are my top four:

Fourth worst: my freshman year at the University of Utah, my LDS Institute "fraternity" decided to sign up for the intramural soccer league. A handful of the guys on my team had played in HS and so they were adequate players for what you'll find in Utah.

They needed a couple more guys so they extended me an invite. I told them I had not graced a soccer field since my AYSO days. With that qualifier out of the way, I got on the roster and showed up at the first game.

First off, I'm the only guy wearing basketball shorts that (even though it was the mid 90's and the John Stockton short-shorts were still relatively in style) were still longer than all the other soccer dude's shorts.

I didn't own any cleats at the time, so I was jusu wearing some cross trainers. My moment of glory came when the ball was rolling toward the sideline. I was the nearest guy to the ball so I ran toward it to give it a nice boot up field. I approached the ball at a pretty quick speed, reared back my leg, struck toward the ball and completely whiffed. I missed so badly that I ended up on my back and the ball rolled out of bounds. I heard a chortle come from the sideline where a dozen spectators had gathered.

Third worst: striking out in softball in 9th grad PE. In this setup, your own team pitched to you and this blond jock with a preppy version of a mullet (hey, it was the early '90s) was pitching to us. He kept throwing bad pitches that I let go by. Both my team and the opposition got restless and jeered the fact that I didn't just swing. I took the next pitch, another crappy one, and I whiffed it. I had never, ever, ever struck out in softball....

Second worst: another softball strikeout. It was for a corporate one-day softball tournament. My boss's boss was on the team and he was super competitive. It was co-ed which made them institute some really lame rules.

I can't remember the nuance of the rule, but if I got walked, somehow the girl on second base would have scored. We were making a comeback from behind. The pitch went up and I had to make that instant decision to swing or take it for the walk - which would have been worth a badly needed run (to tie, if I recall correctly). It looked like a ball, albeit barely. At that very moment in which it's too late to do anything about it, I saw that it was a better pitch than I had initially judged. I watched it pass, it landed, hitting half the plate and half the dirt. The ump called it a strike. Last out, game over. A walk-off strike out - caught staring.

Worst sports moment: I'm about 14 years old playing church-ball hoops. It's early in the second half. The other team is shooting foul shots. I'm playing guard, so I'm not standing at the key, but 8-10 feet behind the foul shooter. His second shot clanks off the rim. I timed it perfectly to get to the ball before anyone else. In all my buck fever, I snatched the ball, drove the lane and like a gazelle laid it in... for the other team.

Our coach was this uber-competitive guy. He flipped out on the sideline with a combo of "What are you doing!?!" and then covering his face in his hands. I immediately got pulled out of the game. I tried to explain to him how or why I did that, but the truth was, I was still trying to figure it out myself as I explained. I *think* I slipped back into 1st half mode at just the wrong moment. I wished the floor could have opened up beneath me.

Two Ways I'd Change Major League Baseball

I've been a baseball fan for a long time, though I'm not as hardcore as I once was. I passively keep track of the standings, and tune in to the All-star Game and World Series.

I'm not sure why it's changed but I'm sure married life and fatherhood has a lot to do with it as my time is spent on other things than watching sports 24/7 like I could have in my younger years.
Anyway, with the Yankees just winning their 27th championship and the season having come to a close, I've been thinking about the two things Major League Baseball needs to do to become a better sports league:

1) Have a true 'round robin' schedule.
There are only 30 teams in the Majors. They play 162 games. There is no reason they couldn't all play each other over the course of that season. It was only in '97 that any inter-league play was introduced. That was a step in the right direction, but they need to go whole hog and get each team playing everyone else.

I'd set the schedule up similar to the way the NBA does it. Take the Angels in the American League for my example. I'd schedule it so that they would play four games against all National League teams; two home, two away. That would account for roughly 60 games of the 162-game schedule. That leaves 100 games to play within their own league. That would mean they could play every team in the American League six times, with a few left over (if I'm doing my quick math right). With those extra games, I'd tack on another home-and-home with division rivals.

That way, at the end of the season, everyone has played everyone else and they've all played a more similar schedule giving a better indication of where each team really stands.

C'mon MLB, get it done!

2) Decide what to do about the designated hitter and make both leagues adhere.

Keep the DH, get rid of the DH - I don't care; just make the leagues play the same game. For non fans, the designated hitter is a 'hitting only' player who takes the pitcher's place in the batting lineup. They only do this in the American League. Theoretically, since most pitchers are horrible hitters, the DH puts a real hitter in the place of the pitcher allowing for more offense, and subsequently allowing the managers to leave their pitchers in the game w/o it affecting their offense (a luxury the National League does not have).

I go back and forth on the rule. I don't hate the DH, but I'm more of a purist, so I would say get rid of the DH for both leagues. On the other hand, if the NL decided they wanted to adopt the DH, I wouldn't really care. Rather, I'd be satisfied that both leagues would be playing the same game.

Can you imagine if the NBA allowed the Western Conference to have a college 3-point line while the East played with the pro version? Can you imagine if the NFL allowed the NFC to play with five downs while the AFC played with the traditional four?

For a sport that is so puritan in its approach to history and tradition, it's shocking to me that they allow the two leagues to play such a fundamentally different game.

So, that's it. That's what I'd change (other than reducing the season by a few games; 162 is too many. April to November is too long).

Alan's Little Life Maxims #26

I've never gotten anything in life by being a total a-hole. I should try it sometime.

Three Halloween Movies

As my wife can attest, I like a scary, freaky, suspenseful movie any time of year. But during the Halloween season, I definitely ramp it up. So, I've been burning through scary flicks by the pile in the last several weeks. If you like scary or Halloween-ish movies, here are three I've seen recently and liked:

1) Carnival of Souls.
I wasn't necessarily expecting to like this. I thought it would be more B-flick fare (which isn't a bad thing IMO, but simply what I was expecting). It dips into that genre a little, but it was actually a pretty quality show.

What you need to know:
It's about a woman who mysteriously walks away from a car accident that claims the life of her two friends. She is an organ player who takes a job in Salt Lake City playing an organ for a local church. The woman begins to think she sees some sort of ghost or zombie, and she feels drawn to an abandoned amusement park near her apartment where the apparition lives. I'll admit, I took particular interest in this movie because it was filmed around downtown Salt Lake and out at the old Saltair Pavilion, just minutes from where I grew up. But local interest aside, it was actually a solid movie. Definitely a moody thriller.

Reminds me of:
"Night of the Living Dead" and "Psycho."

2) Drag Me To Hell

This one was fun. Directed by Sam Raimi of "Spider-man" and "Evil Dead" fame. I was really wanting to see this in the theater, but I missed out on it. I was pretty stoked when it came in the mail to view.

When Sam Raimi does a horror film you have to know what you're getting into. They're a little light on plot: very simple, with plot holes if you're looking for them. But you don't see his movies for this. You see them because he turns up the dial on the surprise 'jump' factor and the over-the-top 'ewww' factor. "Drag" had a good dose of both.

What you need to know:
It's about a young woman, a loan officer, trying to impress her boss to become assistant manager at their bank. One day, she is asked to help an old woman who's home is going to be taken by the bank since she's behind in her payments. Against her compassionate side and thinking of her promotion, the young girl does not extend the woman's mortgage and the woman curses the girl to be taken to hell by a demon.

Sounds like heavy stuff, but it's just good fun. Again, one must ignore the plot but treat the movie like a roller coaster and simply enjoy the ride. With this mindset, you'll like this movie.

Reminds me of:
"The Evil Dead," "House"

3) Quarantine

"Quarantine" is a scary movie that came out recently. The commercials looked pretty good. It got mixed reviews, so I lost my interest and before long it was out of the theaters. Like most modern horrors, I thought that would be the end of that. But it came back from the dead.

It became available to watch instantly on Netflix and I thought I'd give it a view. I was not prepared for the freak out I was about to experience. Aside from a slow 20 minutes at the beginning, it was an intense adrenaline rush throughout. It's a dark, intense movie that takes an even darker more sinister turn in the last 10 minutes that I was not expecting - but it was a nice, macabre touch.

Movies don't scare me. I mean, they rarely do. It's so refreshing when one actually does. In my own full disclosure, I was watching this one alone late at night, but I think it was a quality show any time of day with any group. I've been thinking about it ever since I watched it, and have wanted to see it again.

What you need to know:
It's about a local news reporter and her camera man who have visited a fire station to do a 'night in the life' feature. When an emergency call comes in, the two-person news crew accompanies the firefighters to an apartment complex. Not long after entering, the journalists, the firemen and the complex residents realize that they've been locked in from the outside by the national guard. They quickly discover that they have been exposed to a fast-acting disease similar to rabies that turns its human victims into blood-craving animals. Like rabies, it transfers through bites, etc. into a new victim. Not long after, the news crew and a few other survivors are on the run within the complex full of rabid zombie animal people.

Dudes, this show was intense. It's filmed in the hand-held, 1st-person point of view, and so it...

Reminds me of:
"Blair Witch Project," "Cloverfield"

Happy viewing. And get used to sleeping with the light on for a while.

Go Halos!

I grew up a HUGE baseball fan. This was because baseball - for the most part - was my sport of choice as a kid. I played organized soccer and tennis at certain points in my life, and later on became quite the gym rat for basketball. But for the majority of my youth, from age seven to 14 to be precise, baseball was my sport.

I was actually a pretty darn good shortstop. That was my favorite position. I did pretty well covering any of the bases as well. The demise of my baseball career came once I got to the Babe Ruth league, but that's another post for another day.

Because I liked to play, naturally I followed the "bigs." I collected cards, traded them, watched the standings everyday in the paper (yes, I'm just old enough that that's what I did).

I grew up in the suburbs of Salt Lake City where there was no MLB team, only a revolving door of AAA teams: Gulls, Trappers, Buzz, Stingers, Bees, etc.

Because of this, I picked from the menu of available MLB teams to be my favorite. I liked the Yankees because that was the team Babe Ruth played for. But I wasn't hard core. (And, believe it or not, the Yankees were pretty bad in the '80s by today's standard.)

I was born in San Diego, so I had SoCal blood in me. We moved to SLC when I was three, but we went back to SoCal fairly often, so it felt "common" to me. Because of this, I tended to adopt professional teams from California.

Early on, I adopted the Padres, back when their uniforms looked like Taco Time uniforms. But it didn't take long for me to see that if I was going to cheer for the Padres, they weren't going to give me much to cheer for (after their '84 World Series beat down).

Sometime in the mid '80s I started to really follow the Angels. On one of our summer vacations to California we went to an Angels game and that hooked me. There was also Wally Joyner, who was one of their marquee players at that time. I liked him for his Utah ties. He went to BYU, which I forgave him for; and he, like myself, was Mormon, so I felt like I had something in common with him.

Following the Angels was a little more exciting than following the Padres, but my problem was that I was a fan of the Angels when the Oakland A's were in their golden era. You know: the Bash Brothers (MacGwire and Canseco), the axe murderer-looking Dennis Erickson, and the rest of that gang. They were always a *little* better than the Angels and would annually edge them out for the division pennant. Since this was before the days of three divisions and wild cards, that meant an early winter vacation for the Angels.

I felt some sense of catharsis when the Angels won the World Series in 2002. I hadn't been following them closely at that time, but as they progressed through the playoffs I sat up and took notice. By the time they were playing the Giants in the Series, I was full on into it. All of the disappointment and hope from my younger days came flooding back. When the Halos finally won their fourth game I fully exercised the pain from the close-but-no-cigar years in the late '80s and early '90s.

So, I'm glad they're back in the playoffs. I'm tickled pink that they disposed of the Red Sox in the first round. Here's to hoping they can take care of the Bronx Bombers!

Get-it-Yesterday Song #13: Jeepster

Every time I think it's been a while since I've done one of these GIY posts, I find a way to take even longer for my next one. So, sorry my devoted fans (or fan), I've repented and hope to be more regular with my tunage recommendations.

It's time to get our glam on. Lucky GIY Song #13 is from none other than T. Rex.

T. Rex (who more or less is just Marc Bolan and his back up musicians) is one of those bands that has been floating out there in the outskirts of my musical universe beaming me signals saying "Hey numbskull, listen to me!" I finally took heed this last summer and was not disappointed. File T. Rex in that group of "bands I can't believe it took me so long to discover." Listening to them was like talking to an old friend. It's like I'd always liked them even though I had just familiarized myself with them.

So, if you're going to get a sample of T. Rex there are a lot of good songs. Most people would suggest you start with their biggest hit "Get It On (Bang a Gong)." Others might suggest you get "20th Century Boy," which is actually even better than "Gong," and one of the greatest songs in the history of the world written by the hand mankind. (In fact, I'm not sure why this isn't my GIY selection.)

But, my good friends, I'm all about broadening your musical palate, so I'm going to suggest you go out and get T. Rex's "Jeepster." There's something about the song that is just awesomely catchy and which renders it a good listen for a variety of moods. It rocks, but it chills and grooves all at the same time.

Check it out:



As usual, if you don't have "Jeepster" in your collection, get it yesterday. If already have had the foresight to own this song, spin it again for old-time's sake.

Mummies and Vampires and Cadavers in Walls, Oh My!

In the Halloween spirit, here is a quick report of my three recent movie viewings.

1) The Haunting in Connecticut

This was a movie that was of particular interest to me for a handful of reasons:
a) I like ghost stories that are supposedly true.
b) I like ghost stories, period.
c) I lived in Connecticut for a couple years and can vouch for it being an atmospherically eerie place.
d) I saw a Discovery Channel documentary based on this same case, and it's one of the scariest shows I've seen to this day. I hoped the movie would be equally scary and shed additional light on the actual case.

Well, the movie was decent. Being casually familiar with this haunting case, it was clear to me when Hollywood stepped into the story and inserted manufactured plot and scares. None of this was necessary, and frankly they did a lot of it.

There was this whole subplot of a kid puking ectoplasm during seances and cadavers being buried within the walls of the house. This was not part of the 'actual' happenings, and it was all so implausible that it made the movie less scary.

What made the Discovery Channel documentary so eerie is that it all seemed like it could have happened. This movie version pulled a "Spinal Tap" and took it to 11. In my opinion, real scares are all about subtlety. (For a subtle, but totally creepy ghost story, see "The Innocents.")

Overall, "Connecticut Haunting" did supply enough creep factor and jumps to make the ride worth it. I'd recommend it for those who like scary movies, and not for those who don't. Anna seemed to barely get through it and only watched it because I wanted to see it.

My rating: 3.5 out of 5

Next up, I dived into a couple classics, both offerings from Hammer Film Productions. Hammer was a studio that went about producing horror films, including remaking a lot of the horror classics that Universal Studios had already canonized on film like Dracula and Frankenstein. What you got from the Hammer versions was simply an updated take on the stories. While most of Universal's monster films were made in the '30s, Hammer's glory days were mainly in the '60s and '70s. So, you have slightly better effects and Technicolor. Instead of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, you get Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

2) Of the two Hammer films I watched, one was "The Mummy." I have to confess, my history with any mummy movies is spotty. I've seen the new offerings with Brenden Frasier, which I think are actually pretty good. I don't think I've seen any of Karloff's old Universal versions, though I've seen documentaries and clips from them.

So, I have only a little context for the generic Mummy story. Hammer's version stars Christopher Lee as the mummy, and he plays the role of some Egyptian priest (who becomes the mummy) in some flashback sequences. Peter Cushing plays one part of a trio of archeologists who are the target of the mummy's wrath.

The movie was pretty good. It was definitely dated, but the mummy himself was pretty cool looking. The movie dragged in some parts (no pun intended), but overall it was pretty entertaining. It is a good candidate for a 10-year-old's slumber party movie: scary, but not overly gory requiring parental supervision. If you're any sort of aficionado of horror or supernatural suspense, check this one out just for fun. If not, you probably would not enjoy it.

My rating: 3 out of 5

3) The second Hammer classic I checked out was "The Horror of Dracula." This was Hammer's first and official remake of Dracula. (There would be several sequels, including this campy classic.) So, it features the characters you expect from a classic Dracula tale: Count Dracula, Jonathan Harker, Mina, Lucy, Dr. Van Helsing. The Count is played by Christopher Lee and Van Helsing by Peter Cushing.


Stoker's original novel is one of my favorite books, so I find it annoying and yet hilarious when I see how different adaptations screw around with the roles of the main characters. This one was no different staging Jonathan Harker as a vampire hunter pretending to be a librarian who has offered his Dewey-Decimal skills to the Count. Harker is also Van Helsings partner in vamp hunting crime. There were other character twists as well, not worth going into.

What's missing from this movie, IMO, is the ambiance of other good Dracula movies. While Universal's Dracula has its flaws, its nothing if not macabre. The black & white, the true eastern-European accent of Lugosi, the creepy, barren castle, etc.

I wasn't buying Dracula's castle in this version: not creepy enough. The less Lee spoke, the better I liked him as Dracula. There was one scene where Lee had a lot of dialogue and it seemed strange and made it hard for me to believe this gabby gentleman was Dracula. In another scene he (quite mortally) jumps over a table, which again was hard to imagine Dracula doing; Dracula doesn't need to chase anyone. They run away while he calmly walks after them and somehow still catches up to them, or else he turns into a bat or wolf or something.

Otherwise, the movie was cool. If you're any kind of sentimental Dracula fan, this one is worth watching and you'll be modestly entertained.

My rating: 4 out of 5

Alan's Little Life Maxims #25

Doritos would be my life's guilty pleasure... if they made me feel guilty.

Spray Down

Here is my final submission to the Creative Writing Championship, 2009.

This competition gives you a genre, object and location and you have 48 hours to write and submit a 1000-word story based on those characteristics. Here was my final assignment:

• Genre - fantasy
• Object to include - a kitten
  
• Location - a car wash
  

My Summary: Time and water are of the essence for Kyle to keep his passengers in their current form

Win or lose, this was my final entry. The competition has been a blast. Best of luck to my fellow contestants!

***

Spray Down

The squealing of tires broke the serenity of the scorching summer night on the small, rural main street. A small blue sedan scraped the front of its bumper spraying a flash of sparks as it lunged into the parking lot from off the street. The car fishtailed, straightened out, then accelerated out of the darkness into the fluorescent glow of a self-serve stall in Squishy’s Car Wash.

The commotion had already caught the attention of the crowds hanging out across the street at Earl’s Shake Shack and the patrons gassing up next door.

Kyle threw open the door of his faded blue and rusted VW.

“Get out! Now!” he yelled at his passenger while fishing in his pockets for change.

He ran over to the self-serve console and plunked in a handful of pocket lint-laced coins. A young woman stepped out of the car and leaned against the damp slump-block wall inside the bay. In her slender, feeble fingers she held a ginger-striped tabby kitten.

As he deposited the last coin, the bay lurched to life as water filled the hose. Kyle grabbed the pistol-like nozzle and drew it from its metal holster riveted into the wall.

“Hold still!” he yelled as he took aim at the young woman holding the feline. Before he pulled the trigger the animal leapt from her hands and scampered out into the parking lot beyond the buzz of the lights.

“Forget about him!” Kyle commanded.

He pulled the trigger sending a burst of foam that covered the young woman, head to toe, dowsing her yellow sundress. She screamed in agony as the soap attacked her eyes.

Kyle cursed, ran back to the console, and switched the dial from Super Suds to Power Rinse.

“Look at me! Keep your eyes open!” he said, taking aim again, and blasting her with a stream of mist and jetted water.

Vapor filled the car bay making it glow warmly in the night. Up and down her body he sprayed the stream as the soap dissolved, diluted and ran down her legs, and off her bare toes.

Kyle’s voice broke as he screamed, “Turn around!”

Embarrassed and looking like a drowned rat, she turned around and put her delicate hands on the bumpy brick wall.

Kyle again pointed the nozzle at her.

THWAK! A fist struck Kyle’s jaw sending a shock of pain through each tooth and down his neck like white-hot wires digging into his nerves.

“What the hell are you doing!?” said a heavily-bearded man rubbing the knuckles of his right hand. His friends cheered and slapped him on the back of his sleeveless flannel shirt.

Kyle pushed himself off the wet concrete floor and got to one knee. “No… you don’t understand….”

A crowd had gathered outside the wash bay.

“I don’t, huh? I know a ‘Class A’ dill munch when I see one. I ought to break your neck!” the man said, wiping off his bald head with one hand and still clenching a fist with the other.

The young woman screamed and fell to the ground grabbing her feet. The crowd turned their attention from Kyle to her. She was curled in a ball rubbing her shins.

“What have you done to her?” said the bearded man turning back to Kyle, and burying his steal-toed boot into Kyle’s gut. The crowd reacted with a collective “Ohhhhhh.”

“Leave him alone,” said the young woman with a meek whisper.

Still curled in the fetal position, she winced and buried her head into her forearms.

“Oh my gosh, look!” someone from the crowd said pointing at the young woman.

The flesh on the insides of her legs had opened as if invisible claws had ripped the skin apart. Blood mixed with the soapy water and trickled underneath the car. Like a zipper slowly coming together, the open flesh from both legs fused from her thighs, past her knees and down her shins. Translucent scales painfully pierced her skin and grew in in tight layers. Where there were perfect feet just moments before, there was now a fish tail, displayed like a fan made of smooth, yellow carnival glass.

“Stand back,” said an onlooker.

Another shrieked, “She’s a monster!”

“Go away!” said Kyle, now standing, hunched over holding his abdomen with one hand and the spray nozzle in the other.

The crowd parted between Kyle and the mysterious girl. He resumed the spray of water on her frail body. Before their eyes, the fresh water began to hold back, then reverse, her transformation. One appendage transformed back to two, and scales began to melt away like ice on a hot sidewalk.

Suddenly, there came a chirping sound, then another. Kyle and the crowd looked behind them. The red digital numbers on the console flashed eight seconds left.

“Quick! Someone put in another quarter!” Kyle yelled.

The bearded man, who just a minute earlier had beaten Kyle to the edge of consciousness, dug in his pocket. The clock continued ticking.

With two seconds left, and the water pressure weakening, the bearded man shoved a quarter in. A full-force stream resumed.

For the next thirty seconds the group watched, speechless.

When the water supply finally ended, Kyle dropped the nozzle, walked over and pulled the young woman, now healthy and whole, up gently by the hand. Clearly in a weakened state, and drenched from head to toe, she tenderly stepped back into the passenger side with his help.

As the crowd still stood in awe, Kyle ran to the driver’s side, hopped in, started the car, hit the gas and peeled out into the night.

The crowd walked out from the bay and watched the taillights disappear down the road.

The bearded man felt something strange under his foot. He pulled it away and looked down.

“What the…?”

At his feet was a sunfish, gasping for air in a pile of ginger tabby hair.

Flame On!

Those who know our family even *a little* know we like Halloween kind of a lot at our house. Yes, we're all about All Hallows Eve. For us, the season of the witch starts Labor Day weekend. We try to contain our excitement as long as we can, but it finally breaks through and we start decorating in early to mid-September.

Anyway...

I was bumping around on Twitter a month or two ago and found this guy named @mumblyjoe. He has this Web site where he archives his photography. Over the years, he has shot this cool series of burning Jack 'o lanterns, like this:


Check out the rest of them here on geekus.org. Check out the different photos in the "Fire" section.