2012 Baseball Predictions

Who knew this would be such a popular topic that everyone would be asking me about it?  Okay, only Offord and Ryan asked me about it, but whatever.

NL East
Phillies
Braves
Marlins
Nationals
Mets

The Phillies are still the best team in this division.  The biggest problem they have will be replacing Ryan Howard's bat for the early part of the year.  Also, staying healthy is always a huge concern for them.  The Braves will be right on their heels all season, it will definitely be interesting.  The Marlins and Nationals are both just a step behind those two teams.  I could see them flipping for third place.  The Mets...well, they have Ike Davis.

Insane Division Pick:  Johan Santana wins 15 games this year and is in the running for Cy Young.

NL Central
Cardinals
Brewers
Reds
Pirates
Cubs
Astros

Yes, the Cardinals lost Pujols, but they get Wainwright back and they signed Beltran.  They have plenty of questions though:  can Berkman play like he did last year?  Can Holliday continue to rake without Pujols in the lineup?  The Brewers lost Prince, but still have Braun for the entire year.  They will be pretty damn good.  The Reds made some moves and they could also contend for first place (this will be a close race).  The Pirates made plenty of huge moves (no they didn't).  The Cubs and Astros...wow.

Insane Division Pick:  Berkman will get hurt and Matt Adams (from Philipsburg!) will be called up to the Big Show.

NL West
Giants
Dodgers
Diamondbacks
Rockies
Padres

If the offense can put up some numbers, then the Giants should be able to win this division.  The Dodgers will be decent, Kemp and Kershaw?  They just need an owner to come in to excite the fan-base.  The Diamondbacks will not play like they did last season.  Ian Kennedy will not win 21 games.  The other two teams are there.

Insane Division Pick:  Trevor Cahill has more wins for the D-backs than Ian Kennedy.

NL Wildcard:  Braves defeat Brewers
NLDS:  Phillies defeat Giants, Braves defeat Cardinals
NLCS:  Phillies defeat Braves
NL MVP:  Matt Kemp, the dude will just continue where he left off.
NL Cy Young:  Roy Halladay, until he dies, he will be my nomination.
NL ROY:  Julio Teheran
Pirates Record:  77-85, I see them getting better, but only because the hitting gets better (especially Pedro).  If the pitching staff stays healthy, they should be able to hit this goal.

AL East
Yankees
Red Sox
Rays
Blue Jays
Orioles

Yes, the Yankees are still the cream of the crop.  The Red Sox will not collapse like they did last year, but they have plenty of question marks.  The Rays pitching staff should be good enough to keep them competitive all season.  The Blue Jays are good, but they have plenty of holes.  The Orioles...wow, they are going in a direction.

Insane Division Pick:  Michael Pineda goes 9-13 with a 5.23 ERA;Jesus Montero hits 35 HRs this year.

AL Central
Tigers
Royals
Indians
White Sox
Twins

The Tigers should run away with this division.  As long as everyone stays healthy and Cabrera is not absolutely terrible at third base, they will be very good.  The rest of the division is pretty bad.  That is why I think the Royals could step up and finish in second place.  Granted, I do not think they will have a great record, but seriously, this division will be pretty bad.

Insane Division Pick:  Robin Ventura gets pissed during a Rangers game and charges Nolan Ryan.

AL West
Rangers
Angels
Mariners
Athletics

I realize that the Angels signed CJ Wilson and Albert Pujols, but I think the Rangers still have a more complete team.  The only major question about the Rangers is how good will their relievers be and can Yu Darvish be a good replacement for Wilson. 

Insane Division Pick:  Pujols has his worst season ever.  .275/29 HRs.  Actually, that would be insane.

AL Wildcard:  Angels defeat Red Sox
ALDS:  Angels defeat Yankees, Tigers defeat Rangers
ALCS:  Tigers defeat Rangers
World Series:  Phillies defeat Tigers, Verlander vs. Halladay.  Makes me hard just thinking about it.
AL MVP:  Prince Fielder
AL Cy Young:  Justin Verlander
AL ROY:  Jesus Montero (I predicted him last year too, eventually he will win this award).
Royals Record:  82-80.  They give hope to Pirates fans.

Weigh-In Wednesday IV

181.0.  Woo-hoo, I lost .2 lbs since last week.  It might be time to begin phase three of my overall plan.  As with everything, I have decided that the best way to do something is to really just ease into it.  I mean, making myself healthier would not have worked if I decided to stop smoking, cut out soda, eat healthier, start exercising on the same day.

So, what that means is, I will start working out.  I plan on starting out simple:  sit-ups and push-ups.  Then as time goes on, I might move up to more advanced workouts.  I would like to try P90X again, but honestly, it kicked my ass last time.

Being Wrong

Unfortunately I was wrong.  The laptop has more problems and is now crashing hardcore.  I have reached the point where I refuse to spend any more of my time or money.

The good news is that I was able to move all of my important files to dropbox before the end.

In even better news:  I have been selling a few comics and other items on ebay.  I plan to use that money to buy a new laptop...

Good For Business

Something tells me this did not scare people away from buying porn...

Another Funny Star Wars Video

This one makes me laugh because didn't Tom Selleck turn down the role of Indiana Jones.  Thinking about Tom as Indy just cracks me up.

2012: Idiot Gods

The newest season of Ancient Aliens decided to deal with the Mayan end of the world prophecy, or at least how they never really said that at all.  They had to dig very deep to find the one monument that might mention the end of the world.

Well the monument says that Bolon Yokte will be back that day and he was pretty much the god that was present during all of the other Mayan creation moments.  Or maybe it does not say that, I do not know, I am not a Mayan expert.  Anyways, the AAT folks have decided that Bolon Yokte must be the alien who will return.  And there evidence?  Aside from showing up during major creation events:  there is not much known about him.  Wow.  It truly is a scientific theory...

I honestly hope this Bolon Yokte is an alien and that he comes back.  Just look at him:

Dude has a mohawk and a chicken without a head.  Also, he has huge toenails.  Yep, this will be an awesome alien to hang out with...

Laptop Update!

Guess what everyone?  This is my laptop, and I am about 94.8% sure that I fixed it myself.  Suck it Staples guy!  The more I read about the BSOD errors, the more I realized that I was missing something.  Then I remembered something:  whenever I would type certain things into Google, I would get redirected to another site:  Gimme Answers. 

With all the stuff that I was reading, I kind of forgot about that.  Plus, I updated all my virus scan stuff (Norton).  I even dowloaded another two programs that could help remove registry errors and whatnot.  Needless to say, that stuff did not work (and I am pretty sure that stuff is a scam).

Anyways, I went on CNET and found a good anti-virus/malware program (should have went to CNET first)...after running it, I noticed something, the icon for blogger came back.  I was finally able to log in to my page. 

So needless to say, I think my computer is fixed...and I am awesome.

Weigh-In Wednesday III

This morning I weighed 181.2.  I am guessing at the moment that I might be leveling out.  It amazes me to think that I must have been hitting above 190 at times.

As far as the Mountain Dew withdrawals, well those are pretty much over.  At work I have found a happy medium between drinking some coffee and in between, drinking plenty of water.  Another perk of not drinking soda has been my pee-habits.  Yep, I now go to the bathroom less.  I guess that is another positive result.

I refuse to get to this point...

Laptop Problem

Over the last few days I have been having problems with my laptop.  It went from being fast to now being very slow, and I keep getting the blue screen.  I did the few things that I actually know.  I even went so far as purchasing one of those PC cleaner programs.  Nothing has worked.

I went to Staples to see what it would cost to fix.  The guy opened it up and did a few things.  He came to the conclusion that the hard drive is most likely bad.  He said that it would cost $79.99 for a full diagnostic, then if it was the hard drive, probably another $150 to fix it.  If it was just the RAM that was bad (he took out half the RAM, and that was not the problem) that would be a little bit cheaper...

Remember, I purchased the computer for $350.  To me, it makes absolutely no sense to spend $200 or more to fix my computer, when I could probably just buy a new one.

I do not know what to do, someone give me some advice here.  Also, what would be the easiest way to save the majority of the stuff on my hard drive?  I have a feeling that anything long and complex will not work, since my computer will crash before I get the chance to do it.

Bill Maher's Atheism is Not a Religion

For my religious friends who like to argue that atheism is a religion...

TV Shows Were Good This Week

Royal Pains
This one started out like a typical episode, but then it ended with a bit of a twist.  Hank worries about Jack, who is still out with Jill.  There is a normal case and Divya ends up solving it.  Honestly, this could have been a boring episode, except for two things:

-Dr. Greene is quickly replacing Jill.  She and Hank flirt a little bit and I have a feeling she will be joining the team in a romantic way.  At least I hope so, I am sick of Jill.  And Nina is much cuter.

-All of a sudden, we find out that Jack died.  Yeah, the episode ends with Hank telling the group that Jack did not make it.  I really hope this leads Hank down a dark road.  Maybe he will become an alcoholic.  Oh wait, this is not House, Hank will most likely deal with it in his own way for a few episodes (probably two) and then we will never hear about Jack again.

Justified
Dewey running around trying to get money to pay the crazy nurse who cut out his kidneys.  Obviously, he is a moron and could not hit up anywhere that actually had plenty of cash.  Finally he becomes trapped in a convenience store's closet and eventually Raylan has to talk him out.  Raylan points out that if he can piss, then he must be alright.  Dewey pisses and then responds:  "You mean I had four kidneys?"  What an idiot.

Raylan then walks into danger (in one of the dumbest things I have seen him do) and barely escapes.  He ends up shooting the flirty doctor.  One of these days he may need to take some backup with him.

The meeting between Quarles and Boyd was also pretty damn good.  Boyd knows that he is outmatched by Quarles operation, but he is not going to allow that to stop him.  His carpetbagger speech was fantastic.

The episode ends with Raylan walking into his kitchen and finding a letter.  I am guessing that Winona will be leaving him.  That is a damn shame.

The Walking Dead
It looks like we might be finally leaving the farm.  The shows has become very slow while we stay there and have to deal with all of the drama there.

At least the episode ended with something cool happening.  Rick goes from being a weak character, to the guy who quickly draws on two guys and shoots them both.  This is the Rick we all grew to love in the comics.

Archer
Honestly, if you did not watch it, you probably suck.  "Sullen wench!"

Woolly Mammoth ALIVE!!!! Or not...

I saw this over the weekend, it kept popping up on twitter and I even saw some folks post it on facebook.  Apparently a woolly mammoth was caught on video in Siberia...by a guy who is a paranormal investigator and has been linked to hoaxes before.  Does not sound suspicious at all, right?

I like this video the best, since it also shows what it could possibly be.



Yep, it really does look like a bear with a fish in it's mouth.  Not nearly as cool as a mammoth. 

Weigh-In Wednesday II

This morning I weighed 181.4 (and I am embarrassed to say that I spelled weigh as way last week).  I guess that is a gain of .6 since last week, but that does not really concern me.  I am not consistently under 185, which is a great start. 

The interesting thing has been that I am becoming more conscious about what I eat in general.  Everyone at work thinks that I am on a diet, which is not true.  I gave up soda.  Although, I am now trying to eat a little more healthy, so whatever.

I will not lie though, I almost gave in yesterday and grabbed a Mountain Dew.  I think I was having a caffeine headache and was feeling pretty sluggish.  It just looked so tasty at the store...fortunately, I kept going.  These small changes will add up in the long run.

Valentine's Day

Obviously I am an awesome boyfriend.  Now, I know that you are dying to know what I did for Lindsey for Valentine's Day.  She worked until 8:00 p.m., so I figured I would make her dinner.  I went over to Wal-Mart and bought some stuff to make Parmesan & Ranch Chicken.  I figured for a side I would make some kind of potatoes that we had left over.

While I was there, I decided to buy a cake mix and give that a shot.  Now, I have never baked a cake, so I did not realize that the icing is separate.  This will become important in a little bit.  First let me give you some back story.

Whenever Lindsey cooks dinner, she makes a huge mess.  Granted she will clean it up afterwards, but it is still amazing how the kitchen looks like a bomb went off.  I always make fun of her for this, and after today, I will continue to do so.

I decided to start with the cake.  I mixed it all, put it in the oven and then realized that I needed icing.  I decided to bread the chicken first, then run to the store while the cake was cooling.  I went out to my car and realized my keys were sitting on the counter.  Unfortunately, I locked the house door.

Luckily, I have a plastic key that came with my car in my wallet, so I was able to run down to where Lindsey works and get her house key.  I then drove to the grocery store and picked up some icing and found a spray can of red decorating icing.  I had an idea...

Unfortunately, when I went to write Lindsey, the damn tube shot out insanely fast and wavey for some reason.  So I have no idea what the bottom part is supposed to be now.

Anyways, once this was done, I decided to cut up the potatoes and start boiling them.  Unfortunately, when I pulled them out of the bag I came to a realization:  they were definitely bad.  So I had to throw them away.  All that we had to go with the chicken was some Lipton's mushroom rice. 

Lindsey came home and we ate the delicious meal.  She loved her cake.  I actually enjoyed the chicken, I thought it would be bad since the coating was ranch dressing, but you could only taste a hint of the ranch.  Then I gave Lindsey her present:

She loved it as well.  After that we went to bed and well you can imagine what happened next...

Yep, I am an awesome boyfriend.  Be jealous.

Clint Eastwood SNL Sketches

These almost made me pee myself...especially the second one.







Seriously, please have Clint Eastwood do a Little Caesar's commercial...

Sports Greatness: Baseball Edition Part One

The other day I was listening to the radio and heard the sports guys talking about Kobe Bryant surpassing Magic Johnson as the greatest Laker of all time.  This got me to thinking about who the greatest players are from each team.  Then it got me thinking about something else.  When you think of a sports team, what is the first thing that pops into your head?

That is what this list is, so please do not comment that Player X is the greatest for that team or that I am forgetting some other moment, blah blah blah.  If you want to list your own, do so in the comments.

Today, we shall do the National League of baseball...

Pittsburgh Pirates
This is my favorite team.  So obviously plenty of things stick out for me.  When I think about the Pirates though, there is one player that will always stand out:  Andy Van Slyke.  He was my favorite player as a kid.  I had all of his cards, I even had every magazine I could find with interviews with him.

Atlanta Braves
Pure hatred.  When I think of them, I see Sid Bream sliding home.  I remember being upset about the Pirates losing and my dad telling me not to worry that we would get 'em next year.  Ugh.  How wrong those words were...

Philadelphia Phillies
Mike Schmidt.  That dude had a great mustache.  A close second for me is Lenny Dykstra.  My cousin always argued that he was better than Van Slyke.

New York Mets

My friend James.  I never know what is worse, the Pirates ridiculous long losing streak or being a fan of a team that comes close, but never actually wins.  I will always associate the Mets with watching Carlos Beltran strike out against the Cardinals and also seeing James' face as it happened.  Dude was heartbroken.


Chicago Cubs
Ryne Sandberg.  Not only was he a great second baseman, but his son had probably one of the funniest interviews during an All Star game.  The kid is there to watch his dad and they ask him the usual questions, then the interviewer notices the kid has a gold necklace with a number 23 on it.  He asks "oh, do you wear that for your dad?"  The kid responds "no, my favorite player is Michael Jordan."


St. Louis Cardinals
Bob Gibson.  One of the most dominant and downright nasty pitchers of all time.  Hell, MLB had to change the rules after his 1968 season.  Actually, that always reminds me of how MLB will fiddle with rules in order to help attendance.  They raised the mound in the early 1960s which led to pitcher dominance, then had to shrink the strike zone to help hitters out.  Read about the rule changes sometime, it is quite funny.

Houston Astros
The look on Brad Lidge's face when Albert Pujols decided to hit a ball that is somewhere in space right now.

Cincinnati Reds
The 1990 World Series when the mighty Oakland A's got swept by the Reds.  I remember this series because I thought the A's would easily win it.  This taught me a valuable lesson:  anything can happen in baseball.

San Francisco Giants
Speaking of World Series'...I will always remember what I told my dad when he asked me who I thought would win game three.  I said something like "no one, the game is going to be cancelled due to an earthquake."  Yep, I predicted that one...and no that does not make me at all special.

Los Angeles Dodgers
Jackie Robinson.  I do not think I need to really explain this one.

San Diego Padres
The first game I ever went to was at Three Rivers Stadium against the Padres.  I was five years old.  My entire family went as a large group and if I remember correctly, we were there for the entire series.  We used to do that a few different times during my youth.  Anyways, my mom and aunts went to the Padres dugout and bugged the players until they tossed them some balls (haha that is funny sounding).  I had a ball from the Padres, which I lost a few years later because I was an idiot and used it during a pickup game of baseball.  Exactly like The Sandlot!

Colorado Rockies
Dante Bichette.  Mainly because of that awesome name, but also because he is embodiment of someone who benefited from playing in Denver.

Florida Marlins
Winning the 1997 World Series was pretty impressive, but winning a second one in 2003 was craziness.  Especially since they did it against the mighty Yankees and their endless payroll.  Also, the first time they did it by building a team with cash, this time they did it with their young players acquired during the previous firesale.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Luis Gonzalez single during game seven of the 2001 World Series.  As I have stated many times before, I stopped watching baseball in 1994 because of the strike.  The McGwire/Sosa home run chase brought me back a little bit, then the Subway Series brought me mostly back.  '01 was pretty much the first year that I really got back into baseball. This was a fantastic series to watch.

Washington Nationals
Adam Dunn crushing a ball against the Pirates.  Yep, I went to see the Pirates/Nationals the night after Stephen Strasburg made his debut.  Whatever, I saw his debut in Altoona. 

Milwaukee Brewers
Screw them.  I try to block them out.

Stay tuned for the American League.

Weigh-In Wednesday

Last week when I started this, I weighed 187.6, today I way 180.8.  I have lost 6.8 pounds by just giving up Mountain Dew.  And yes, I have not had one.  I will be honest though, it is extremely difficult.

I have had worse withdrawals with this than with giving up smoking.  At work has been the hardest.  I go to grab a drink and my immediate reaction is to go for the soda, but then I stop myself and have water. 

I posted the question on facebook, asking everyone what I could drink instead.  Apparently the only drink out there aside from soda is some form of tea.  I am not a huge tea fan.  I will keep searching though.

I knew this would not be easy, but seeing the results so quickly has helped encourage me.  I will keep this up.

Justified: Devil You Know

This episode of Justified was supposed to be a simple one where Raylan tracks down two escaped fugitives.  Oddly though, this episode was anything, but simple.  In actuality, the escaped fugitives were Dicky and Dewey, the two biggest idiots on the show.

They are actually broken out by the guard and the prison doctor, the guard wants Dicky's money.  Now, while all this is happening, Quarles makes an offer to Devil.  We never hear it out loud, but we all know what they want:  Boyd dead.

Naturally, Raylan pays a visit to Boyd to see if he knows where the fugitives are hiding.  Raylan reminds Boyd that he can keep better tabs on Dicky if he is in prison.  Anyways, in the end Raylan captures Dicky, who survived with some help from Mr. Limehouse.  He then learns that the good doctor has Dewey.  The doctor is about to take out Dewey's kidney...

Favorite part of the episode?  Raylan hitting the prison guard with his car, and then seeing him get up and deciding to back into him.  Best way to avoid using a gun.  Also, telling him that his spleen could rupture was also pretty good.

The episode ends with Devil and Johnny confronting Boyd.  We all knew that Boyd would see it coming and that Johnny would not betray Boyd, but what made this great:  Boyd does not offer a choice or say a whole, he just shoots Devil and then asks him if he wants him to take the pain away.  He then puts the gun to his head, we hear Devil whimper and as the screen goes black, we hear the gunshot.

So, that sets up a few things for next week.  Dewey doing Deweyesque things, like robbing strip clubs or something.  He needs money, I think for his kidney.  Boyd versus Quarles.  Limehouse continuing to be a badass.  And Raylan in the center of it all.  I mean, if not for him, so much of this shit would not be happening.  Pretty crazy when you think about it.

And thanks to Warming Glow for this:

Amazing Spider-Man Preview

I have not posted about this movie yet.  I still think rebooting the franchise is rather stupid, I think you could continue with different actors, but whatever.  It does not look terrible, is that a compliment?

Pope Vader

2012: Chevy Super Bowl Ad

I actually enjoyed this commercial for the most part.  I just wish they would have omitted the Mayan Apocalypse newspaper headline at the beginning.  Why not just use "End of the World" as the headline?  Instead, Chevy continues to push this idiotic idea on people. 

NFL Pick 'Em: Super Bowl Version

I was 2-0, which brings me to 5-5 for the playoffs, which means my total record for the year is 128-128.  I need to get the Super Bowl right to have a winning record.  Pretty crazy.

New York Giants vs. New England Patriots (-3.0):  Giants
I do not have a lot of reasoning behind this one.  It just seems to me that the Giants are going to win the game.  Plus, you should not come to me for in-depth analysis, go to ESPN or any other channel covering such things.

Instead though, let us look at some of the fun prop bets:

Coin Toss:  Heads


Kelly Clarkson Bets
-Will she forget words?--No
-Will she wear a jersey?--No
-How long to sing the anthem?--Under 1:34
-Show her bare belly?--Yes

Other People Mentions:
-Number of times Peyton Manning shown?--Over 3.5 (I would say five times)
-Number of times they show Giselle?--Over .5 (I would say at least two times)
-How many times will Andrew Luck be mentioned?--Over 1.0 (I say three times)

Random:
-Color of Gatorade on winning coach:  Blue (it's a 10:1 long-shot)
-Super Bowl MVP Thank First?  God

And that is all I am doing, I will not even mention any of the stupid Madonna stuff. 

Groundhog Day

I just discovered that I have never posted anything about this idiotic holiday.  And, since everyone in the universe is posting videos from one of my favorite movies, I figured I better jump in...but instead of the same clips as everyone else, I went with one of my favorite scenes:

Cha-Cha-Changes

I have a confession to make.  I lied to you.  Remember a long time ago when I said I quit smoking?  Well, it only really last about a month (if that really).  I kept buying a pack whenever I would go out drinking.  And then it just happened that I kept smoking.  I felt pretty crappy about it and I actually hid it (or at least tried to) from most of my family.  Sorry everyone.  I let you down.

Well, I have some good news.  No, this is not another I am going to quit smoking announcement.  I actually already quit.  My last cigar was back on 9 October 2011.  The day I wrote this post.  I went to work on the 10th and have not had one since.  Now before someone jumps on my nuts, yes, on a few occasions I have had a cigarette at a bar (not that many though).  See, the big thing I learned (I did this online quit smoking thing through work) was that you have to stay focused on quitting, you might slip up, but that is not cause to just give up.

The great thing has been that the last bunch of times I have went out for a beer, I have not really wanted to smoke (minus that night with Lindsey and Jason, where I got really drunk and tried to get one off the people as we were leaving, but Lindsey stopped me--yelled at me).  The biggest thing has been having Lindsey here to keep me motivated.  And maybe to reward me for going a month without one.  She bought me Thor on blu-ray after one month.

It has now been 114 days (I think my math is right) and I am quite proud of this achievement.  Unfortunately, I am not ready to stop there.  I have come to realize that I live an unhealthy lifestyle.  A few months ago I wanted to make changes, but I realized that I tried that before.  I was in the quitting smoking/working out/change diet phase.  Unfortunately, I failed at all of them.

Now that I am convinced that smoking is beat, I am moving on to phase two of my new plan:  quit drinking Mountain Dew.  Everyone tells me I will lose weight if I quit drinking it.  Some of you have no clue how much I drink in a single day.  It is a pretty scary sight.

My last Mountain Dew was on Sunday (30 January 2012).  I weighed myself today, I am at 187.6 pounds.  Yes, I am a fat bastard.  I plan on checking each and every Wednesday (Weigh-In Wednesday...how does that sound?) and let you folks know where I am weight-wise, and how I am doing so far without my favorite drink.  This is actually going to be harder than quitting smoking.  If I can do this, then it is time for phase three...