Anchorhead

It may take me a post or two to get my thoughts to where they make as much sense as possible.

Unfortunately, as is usually the case, I don't have an answer that helps one side or the other, or that casts a light on one side or the other.

Where sports are concerned, I'm a baseball fanatic.  It's as big a part of my world as motorcycles are, and it has been for just about as long (I started riding when I was ten years old).  That said;  I don't follow any other sports.  I know nothing of football, basketball, hockey, or soccer. I don't follow the seasons, I don't know players, I don't know the rules. I just have no interest.

Now, with that in mind, I'll try to quantify what moves me about baseball. Since I was a kid, I've found it fascinating.  It's a chess game on a field.  It has strategy, it involves several types of skills, by different types of players, each with different strengths and weaknesses.

It's slow and methodical, there are moments where the tension builds, where the entire game - sometimes an entire season of 162 games - can hang on a single pitch, hit, runner, fielder, etc.  You have time - or is it forced to take the time? - to feel the tension.

I wish I could explain the tension when our guys are up by only a run, bottom of the eighth, two men out & a runner at second, with Pettitte staring down the number four hitter, with a full count on him. It can be gut-wrenching. Fast ball, breaking ball, cutter? - what's he going to challenge the hitter with to try to get him to make a mistake? And if he does manage to get wood on it, will Jeter be able to get to it in time?

As far as the representation of city is concerned, I don't feel that as strongly as some fans.  The game and it's history are much bigger than any one place. That said, when there are guys who become obnoxious about the contest, I tend to hope their team loses, just so they'll feel the let down.  By trying to make it a them against me contest, they bring an ugly side out of me.  I want them to be forced to be humble. Baseball isn't him against me - it's a team of professionals against another team of professionals. We're just watching it on TV. I never use the phrase I\we won - because it wasn't me.  I don't manage the team, I don't suit-up, nor do I make player personnel decisions. I'm not the Yankees - I'm a fan of the Yankees.

Along those lines, I often times root against a fan base as much as I do against a team itself. The more obnoxious or arrogant the fans, the more I want their team to lose. I used to work with a guy that was a huge Steelers fan, a borderline disturbed fan, with an unhealthy attachment to the team.  On Mondays after the Steelers won, he would come to work in a replica jersey shirt and spend all day lording the win over other sports fans - whether they were football fans or not. On Mondays after the Steelers lost, he'd call in sick.  On Tuesday when he came in, as soon as people would try to give him a taste of his own medicine, he'd claim he didn't watch the game - had to mow the yard, fix his wife's car, etc, etc.  It was a disturbing denial of reality. He completely took the fun out of sports.

After the World Series this year, I posted that I felt a loss over the season ending (I always do).  Warbler told me to suck it up - my team won the World Series. I had to clarfity two points for him - I don't own the Yankees, and baseball is bigger than any one team. I feel the loss when the season is gone.  Baseball's off-season is also my off-season. It's when I watch movies and read books.

I'm rambling, so I'll try to sew this up.  The solitude that is a pitcher on the mound, a hitter in the box, or a center fielder out there alone - there is a connection to that, which I can't explain.  It's been that way since I was a little kid. I'm a fairly solitary figure, so that solitude has always spoken to me. In a way that other sports don't. I feel a connection to it that is perfectly summed up in Field Of Dreams;

The one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time.

And Warbler - yes, I've been following the Winter Meetings very closely. How could the Yankees let Matsui go!?  He was a one-man wrecking crew.  By the way - nice move getting Halladay. Man, you gotta dig a team that's so solid they can afford to let Lee go for an upgrade - as if there was one.

*edit*

One of my favorite baseball quotes of all time, from Emmylou Harris , in an issue of Esquire, years ago. One of the few I saved.

"I love the game. I love the history of the game. I love the fact that anything can happen but probably won't. But sometimes does."

Digging the new tighter, cleaner look.

TheBoost said:

When one rips a CD and the computer automatically adds the artist/album, etc, where does that information come from?

I ask because I jst ripped an audiobook on history, but instead of artist/album I got a series of mispelled swear words and racial slurs for 'album' and 'artist' in the tags.

Very odd.

 

That metadata is called an ID3 tag. Most ripping software contacts the Gracenote database for the information, a huge database that uses calculations based on track length, name length, number of tracks, etc. There are a few other databases, but Gracenote is the largest, by far.

The database builds itself as people rip CDs. Apple uses it for iTunes, so it's receiving data constantly. Like the others stated, someone with a little too much time on their hands altered a file that was similar in length & time, posted the data, and your app grabbed it.  I've had a couple of similar instances before.  I've also submitted a correction to Gracenote before. There was a song title misspelled on an CD I had, so I corrected my personal ID3 tag before I submitted it to the database.

You can edit your ID3 tags with most programs, or download a third-party program that can do it. There are several.

Vaderisnothayden said:

The holiday special is bloody scary. But it's still more star wars than the stuff Lucas has been putting out from 97 onwards.

As someone who saw the Holiday Special when it originally aired - and have been trying to purge the images from my memory ever since - I agree with the above statement.

Two.

One is the 2006 DVD of the original theatrical release of Star Wars.  It's on a small shelf of a desk return in my home office along with about 15 other DVDs & Blu-rays, for easy access. It's in a single-DVD case, with a cover I made (the original one-sheet).

The other is a DVD of extras from one of the previous releases.  I got it off Ebay so I could rip the audio from the original theatrical trailer of Star Wars and add it to my Star Wars soundtrack CD (which I did). That DVD is in a drawer with all my DVD sets of TV shows. Those take up too much shelf space and have various styles of packaging.

TV's Frink said:

Well, kiss my grits!

Gaffer Tape said:

In fact, they should change it so that the pod destroys the second Death Star. ^_~

All kidding aside, I always sort of assumed Jabba was somewhat close by.  Maybe the same planet, maybe a nearby planet that could be reached fairly quickly. That, or the "I was just going to see him..." was more of Han's BS to buy some time (most likely the case).  Truthfully, Han just wasn't a good guy, regardless of what Lucas tried to SE him into decades later.  The character worked because he wasn't a good guy.

Even though it isn't everyone's cup of tea - in the NPR radio version, Han is much more of a shit than he is in the film.  In fact, he's truly unlikeable for the first few hours, and not in a cool, rogue sort of way - but in a selfish piece of crap sort of way. He fully intends to leave Luke, Ben, and the princess on the Death Star. 

Gaffer Tape said:

...the single most important space-faring vessel in the entire series. 

beebech7117 said:

That scene connects Episode IV with Episode VI as it was meant to be.

Gaffer Tape said:

 It ended up on the cutting room floor for a reason, and it was not because of an unfinished special effect.

When all the revisionist lies are removed from the story, that's it in a nutshell.  It was never intended to be in the film.  It was an idea that was scrapped - as it should have been.  Not knowing anything about the Jabba character - other than he was someone the untrustworthy pilot had to stay clear of - made for a much more interesting angle to the story.  You know - the whole imagination thing.

xhonzi said:

Anchorhead, perhaps you'd like the site I started: theresoneandonlyone2001movieanditcameoutin1968.com

;-)

I've been a more-than-casual Trek fan for decades. I enjoyed the latest film. For me, it was better than most of the previous films and it fit in just fine with the history of the series. In fact, it got back to the more cerebral aspects of Science Fiction - altered realities, internal struggles, spacetime, etc.

Those types of "we're taking a stand against the franchise" boycotts are funny. They just come across as selfish tantrums. The movie-going public is a hell of a lot bigger than the voice a period-specific segment of a 44-year-old franchise consisting of six TV series, 11 films, and hundreds of novels.

It's no different than us here (even though we're trying to get something as opposed to stopping something). I signed the petition years ago in good faith, but I never expected it to amount to anything - and as it turns out, it didn't. Not really anyway. We finally got a DVD version of the theatrical release, but it was substandard quality, given away as an extra, on a disc with a childrens game. It was a bitch slap to our segment of the fan base.

We changed nothing. While we were being placated, the franchise is continuing on in the direction Lucas wants it to go. The revisionist lies are still being published as though they were fact, history still being erased, the cheese still being produced, and by all indications we're no closer to getting what we want.

The TOS fans taking a stand against the 11th film has about as much impact as me starting a website called - theresonlyonestarwarsfilmanditcameoutin1977.com

For me, what has always worked and always kept my angst & heartburn down to manageable levels, has been my method for most of my life......If you don't dig the idea of a certain film - don't go see it. Hating it doesn't change anything and seeing it only puts the images in your head.

[/off-topic rant]

skyjedi2005 said:

I had enough of that preaching in high school, i go to a film for either a good story or an escape from reality 

I agree.  I often times go to the movies for a break from the stresses of daily life.  I don't care to be preached to, or scolded - particularly for actions\practices\policies\etc that I didn't participate in, don't agree with, nor would I support.  If it's a historically accurate period piece, such as Dances With Wolves, I'm all for it. (One of my top ten films).   If it's a preachy, self-serving metaphor - I won't bother.  I'd rather see the information much more clearly, in a documentary.

That said....

skyjedi2005 said:

 

how white people were bad to the black people

how white Europeans were bad to the...native Americans.

...politics nonsense.

Racial discrimination & genocide are not political nonsense.

TV's Frink said:

Anchorhead said:

TV's Frink said:

  I'm not a big fan of "e" in general.

The first one or the second one?

The first, second, or third.  I'm just not down with "e" 'cause that's just how I roll.

 

There are only two  in general.

TV's Frink said:

  I'm not a big fan of "e" in general.

The first one or the second one?

Gaffer Tape said:

how does one go about converting word processing documents to a .pdf file? 

skyjedi2005 said:

Would not this go under the how to's and technical discussions?

C3PX said:

Your mom would go under the how to's technical discussions! Whoooohooooo!

I've seen the trailers. Doesn't look like something that would interest me. Looks to have the requisite, calculated, pseudo-deep dialogue, and tough guy bravado in place. You can just about hear what the next line is going to be - many of them seemingly written specifically with quotable catch phrase in mind.

I'm also not a fan of CGI characters in a live action setting i.e; Jar Jar & Gollum. They look just like what they are - drawings added to live action. Fine on their own, but distracting when placed out of their drawn world. Truthfully, I don't really care for CGI films in general. Films using CGI to enhance a scene (the way matte paintings used to) are fine, I'm all for that. However, I don't care for things like Transformers, the last two Star Wars prequels, 300, etc - films that almost look like Pixar pieces.

Now, all that said - to paraphrase Oprah Winfrey - here's what I know for sure; James Cameron must be a huge Roger Dean fan. The film looks like it takes place within a Roger Dean world. Being a HUGE Yes nerd for the past 35 years, I'm intimately familiar with Dean's work. The similarities in Avatar jumped out to me almost as soon as the trailer started. Where that part of the film is concerned, it's nice to see Roger Dean's world realized.

With God as my witness, Roundabout just came on the radio as I was previewing this post before hitting "post reply". Very fitting.

In and around the lake, Mountains come out of the sky, And they stand there

Matsui for mayor.

In a 7-3 win, those 6 runs were the championship. Matsui was a one-man wrecking crew last night. No bravado, no swaggering, no BS - the guy just goes about his job. That's how a role model should behave.

I'm glad the Yankees won, of course - but it's because I like Pettitte, Jeter, & Posada. I'm sorry A-Roid gets to go along for the ride. He already has the biggest ego on the planet, hard to imagine there's room for any more self-love. But, I have no doubt he'll make room.

My real emotion today is - I hate that baseball is over until next year. It's the only sport I care for, so baseball's off-season is also my own. This is the part of the year where I go back to books in the evenings. Looking forward to the Han Solo adventures. That will be a nice change of pace through the winter months.

skyjedi2005 said:

Look how many championships the yankees won with clemens,

 

....and how many cy young awards clemens won.

 

I wish the Red Sox were in the series but i will now want The Phillies to win because the Yankees don't deserve to win...

The Yankees won 2 World Series with Clemens on the team - the same number the Sox won with Manny & Papi.

Clemens' Cy Young awards:

5 with the Sox

1 with the Yankees

1 with the Astros

Sky, the Yankees last won the World Series nine years ago.  The Red Sox have won twice since then, with two of their biggest players on the juice.  In the steroid era, no team is above suspicion and the Yankees were far from having the market cornered on cheaters. 

And just so I make myself clear on this;  I can't stand Clemens. I didn't want him on the team the first time and I was particularly disgusted when they interrupted a game during the 7th inning stretch in 2007 with Clemens in the personal suite of the Boss, taking the microphone and saying "they came and got me...".  What a colossal waste of money that was.

As soon as I read the post, this image popped into my head. It's not ground-breaking and there were plenty of others in the film that were more impressive. However, as I sat in the theater in 1977, it's the one that really moved me into feeling far far away and has always been my mental image of the film.

Anchorhead said:

It's clear from your posts and conflicting statements that you see your team as above any sort of wrong doing

Yoda Is Your Father said:

Just checked and Anchorhead has me on his ignore list... no idea why, especially as I very rarely post these days (more of a lurker) and I quite like his posts and his anti-anything-except-star-wars-77 stance. Baffling. oh well...

I was browsing quickly on a different machine, not logged in, and I saw this post. I just checked my ignore list and you're the only one on the list I don't remember adding. Did a search of your posts and don't see anything that would have bothered me.

Strange. Maybe it was a mistake.