All-Star Break: Finally, it’s over…

I love baseball.

I hate the All-Star break.

I am fine with letting the fans vote in the players, but then you need to call it what it is — a popularity game. Most guys with the stats who deserve to play, don’t get a chance because of big name players. But, if you want the fans to pick that’s what you get. Fine.

The game is a joke, even if it counts now because of Bud Selig’s stupid decision to give the winner home field advantage in the World Series. And with interleague games, MLB cable packages, and fantasy baseball updates, most everyone who cares can keep tabs on their favorite players no matter what team they play for.

But most of all it is the day off before the game, and the day off after the game (or in some teams cases, 2 days off) that sucks the most.

For 3 1/2 months now, we have all gotten into the rhythm of watching our favorite teams, night in, and night out. The Indians have had 2 days off since May (I think, don’t quote). And now i have to take 4 days off and just watch a popularity game?

Tonight the insanity ends, and we can get back to baseball.

The Indians had 3 All-stars. They are 0.5 games out of first place. And tonight they open a series at home against the Kansas City Royals. Maybe now the fans in Cleveland will get over whatever it is that is keeping them away, and go see a ballgame.

Go tribe!

Good Bye Time Warner Cable…

don’t let the door hit you in the ass…

Meghan and I decided to pull the plug on Time Warner Cable. We’ve had too many bad experiences with them since moving into the house 10 months ago, that we decided to give satellite a try.

Many houses in our neighborhood have satellite dishes on their houses. A lot actually. So we took the plunge.

Dish installation was pretty much flawless. About 2 1/2 hours. The guy was friendly, informative, and honest about all the options and our decisions. We lost our signal once or twice a couple of hours after install, but it has been fine since. It is taking a little time to get used to, like channel numbers. Comedy Central was 67, now its 112 or 240, or something.

We went with the bundled AT&T DSL and DISH package. Of course this meant we had to have a phone line turned on at the house. We were a cell-phone only house. Actually we still are, the DISH and the DSL are the only things plugged into the phone jacks. It took about a week to get the order straightened out. But installation was about 20 minutes, and all 3 computers were surfing on the wifi network.

So after all this work (I had to install 2 new phone jacks, and run 2 new lines, and yes, I did do this myself) and having a DISH planted on our roof we are going to save about $30-40 per month (we even get 3 months of free DSL) for the first year, and about $20 a month the second year.

Good bye Time Warner and your inflated, ever rising cable costs… and so far, good riddance.

Cleveland: A Destination?

While listeing to WCPN this morning, a local caller gave his opinion on the discussion of the Medical Mart + Convention Center.

It went something like this:

“No one is going to come to Cleveland for a convention. If I lived in another city, I’d never come here. We need to stop talking about a Convention Center, and start thinking in reality.”

Do you think Cleveland is a destination location?

What about all the conventions that currently come to Cleveland?

Why do Clevelanders think that people don’t want to come here? Why would we chose to live here, and yet think if we didn’t we wouldn’t come visit?

Why do we not want people to come visit?

This kind of attitude goes back to my comments about Cleveland’s negative self-image problem.

I just don’t get it.

WTF!

To most people it is just another news story, but…

Last night Meghan and I were heading back from a lovely birthday dinner (hers) at Three Birds when we run into a police barricade on Triskett. From 145th to 140th was closed off.

Turns out a 20-year veteran police officer chased his estranged wife around the neighborhood while shooting at her car! When fellow police officers tried to intervene, he stopped his car, and killed himself. His wife, apparently, is ok.

Now, I certainly do not know the people involved. And I don’t know what it was like to be them. And I feel for their friends and family to have to deal with such a tragedy.

But what the f*@$ is going on in today’s world — hell, what the F*@$ is going on in Cleveland.

A firefighter shooting his annoying neighbors. A love triangle turns deadly at a McDonalds. And now a cop racing the city streets trying to shoot his own wife. All in the past 7 days.

I know crime happens. And I usually gloss over most of it. The news is nothing but a laundry list of who got shot. I have become disinterested because it is everywhere.

But when it happens 1 block over, and at the driveway of the house that backs up to my backyard, it hits a little too close to home.

Anything can happen.

Fantasy Baseball: The Half-way Point…

The All-Star break is here.

i’ve never been a fan of the All-Star game. It is a popularity contest, not a game for the best players at this point. But that’s what you get when you leave the starting line up to the fans…

My fantasy team however is sitting on an 8-4-2 record. 2nd in my division by 1 game. 3rd in the league. I currently hold a playoff spot. The #1 team has a 10-4 record… those 2 ties against the 2 bottom ranked teams are hurting me, but they are better than loses.

Out of the 21 players I drafted, 12 have been replaced. Some many times over.

My 1st 2 picks are proving their weight in gold. Chase Utley and Grady Sizemore have been everything advertised.

My main weakness is Home Runs. Utley and Sizemore lead my team with 15 home runs each. I need a big bat.

Grabbing Kenny Rogers and Fausto Carmona off the waivers have proven to be good moves. Wandy Rodriguez was a good pick up too. Schmidt and BJ Ryan hitting the season-ending DL didn’t help, but I think I have recovered.

So far it has been a good season. Great competition. Lots of young, new players making a difference, and lots of moves to be made on the waiver wire.

Wish me luck.