All These Changes Taking Place

A very Happy 32nd Anniversary to the wonderful people that brought yours truly into this world. I am blessed with many of their genes which make me the evolutionary dominant specimen that I am today. But seriously folks, my parents rock and I think its just great that they've made it this far. They are more then a statistic, they are a representation of what hard work and love can accomplish. I just hope one day to be able to have what they have. Thanks again for everything.

So I went out for a run yesterday. Mind you the day was August 30. So I'm out running and I notice something. Something that happens every year, but usually not this soon. I saw that the leaves on some trees have started changing colors already! This is seriously depressing folks. That means cold weather is just around the corner. I enjoy wearing shorts and after the hot summer we've had (which I loved) I am NOT looking forward to the cold weather. C'est la vie.

It appears that I have a new reader to this here blog. "The Restless Graduate Student" has been posting comments. It is kind of funny, because I have no idea who it is. It could be someone I know (from MSU, CWRU, or elsewhere) who is using an alias, or it could be some random person that I really don't know. My money is on the former. Whoever you are, I enjoy your comments and look forward to more. And as far as your identity is concerned, right now I'm fine not knowing who you are, as it adds an air of mystery to this.

You know, after a long time of being on the outside, I've been gradually working my way back into the Vortex. I hear a spot has opened up for me?

Talk Talk Talk About It

I know it's been a couple weeks since I said I was going to buy a new t-shirt, but Threadless decided to print one that I wanted. So sometime this week, I'll be ordering this shirt. Mom, you should like it, as it goes well with my fetish with the game of Scrabble. Coincidentally, I've met some folks here in the hall who dig the game also and it looks like we'll be having regular Scrabble games. Hot damn!

Well, I just signed-up for another IM service. The internet juggernaut that is Google has released their IM service, Google Talk. It is in the Beta stages, but I'm a fan of the guys at Google and what they do, so I thought I'd give it a try. The big thing with this one is that you can make phone calls through it. Of course I lack a microphone, so I have yet to actively participate, but I did hear the sweet words of Erin Greer coming through my laptop speakers. I think you need a Gmail account to sign up, but if you are interested in getting Google Talk, I can send you a Gmail invite.

Anyway classes start tomorrow. I currently have 4 jobs and a thesis to do. And a social life. We'll see how the semester rolls.

It's Just a Sweet Sweet Fantasy

I recently had my Fantasy Football Draft. I'm in a 14-team league with my fellow CWRU Swimmming Alums. I will now offer a bit recap of my draft and thoughts regarding my team. First off my players are currently as follows:

QB - Jake Delhomme (Car)
WR - Randy Moss (Oak)
WR - Terrell Owens (Phi)
WR - Mike Williams (Det)
RB - Chris Brown (Ten)
RB - Carnell Williams (TB)
TE - Randy McMichael (Mia)
K - Mike Nugent (NYJ)
Def - Baltimore
BN - Marshall Faulk (StL)
BN - Kyle Boller (Bal)
BN - Bubba Franks (GB)
BN - Nate Goings (Car)
BN - Matt Jones (Jax)
BN - NYG Defense

I arrived in the draft room with the #4 overall pick. I was a bit perplexed with this pick. It is good to have a high pick, but I ended up picking Randy Moss first. I'm not sure if he was worth the #4 overall pick, but I'm expecting big things from him in Oakland this year and he was one of the players I really wanted. Ideally, I would have traded this pick down because I knew he'd most likely still be available later in the first round. Since the draft goes in reverse order each round, the next pick I had was #25 overall. This gave me plenty of time for players I wanted to get picked. I knew that I wanted a RB next. Examining the board I decided to go with the youngster Chris Brown. He's entering his 3rd year and should improve on his 100-yd season of 2004, right? Yes, except for one little fact that I forgot. THE TITANS TRADED FOR TRAVIS HENRY AND THE TWO BACKS WILL BE SPLITTING TIME. Arrrrggghhh! That was my first stupid move. RBs make or break your FFB team and going into the 3rd round with no dominant back, and few left, I left my backfield pretty much screwed. Round 3, I ignored my need for another quality RB and went with the mantra, "Best Player Available." To my amazement, the eternal disturbance Terrell Owens was still available here. Since my RB crew is going to suck, I may as well have a kick-ass receiving corps. TO is a bit of a wildcard here. Who knows 1) if he will play, and 2) how well he will. The popular notion is if he does play, he will produce. But there is so much up in the air with his situation in Philly that this is a risky move. It's kinda like drafting Barry Bonds this year for FBB. He was injured, but if you drafted him, you knew he'd have a big year if he played. Well here we are at the end of August and BB still hasn't played. Hopefully TO has a great year.

Round 4 I went with the rookie RB out of Tampa, Carnell "Cadillac" Williams. He is expected to be the featured back, but with all rookies, you never know how he is going to do. Round 5, I made what could be a premature move by drafting the Baltimore Defense. Was Round 5 too early to draft my defense as the next one wasn't drafted until 31 picks later? This could be debated, but ever since my RB debacle I needed to save face and I wanted the Raven Defense. Round 6 gave me a steal with Randy McMichael, a vastly underrated TE from Miami. Round 7 I picked up my QB, Jake Delhomme. I'm actually surprised he was still around. While he might not be a dominating QB, he'll still put up numbers that I'll be happy with. Round 8 I picked up Marshall Faulk. He is heading into the twilight of his career and will not be the featured back in St. Louis. He will, however, still contribute to the Rams offense. He'll be able to come off of the bench for me and either run or catch the ball for quality yards. Round 9 I picked up the rookie Mike Williams. He hasn''t played in 2 years, so who knows what he will do. Also, he's part of the receiver-heavy Lions team, so his numbers may not be as good as they would be if he was with a different team. In round 10 I got the kicker I wanted, Mr. Nugent. Following the OSU Buckeyes as much as I have may have given me the advantage here. The beauty of this league is that a lot of people are from out of state and may not have followed OSU as closely as I have and don't know the beauty that is the leg of Mike Nugent. In a few years he will be one of the best kickers in the league and I'm expecting a great rookie campaign out of him. The rest of the draft involved me bolstering my bench, getting Boller, Franks (in round 12?!), Az-Zahir Hakim, Trent Dilfer, and the New York Football Giants defense. I have subsequently dropped Trent Dilfer for Nate Goings and Az-Zahir Hakim for Matt Jones. Goings will bolster my RB crew and I got Matt Jones last night after watching him make a great catch against Atlanta. Jones is a curious case. He was a QB who could run in college, was drafted #21 overall and is now playing receiver. Apparantly he makes highlight reel catches daily in practice.

I was initially disappointed with my team, due to my stupidity with the RBs. After a couple of days and a couple of moves, I'm happy. I'm thinking that overall I've got a pretty good team. Is my strength in other places (WR, Def, K) good enough to overcome my deficiencies at RB? Only time will tell. But it should be a good year.

A couple of last things here. My team now has it's 3rd name in almost as many weeks. I started out as Awkward Moments, in reference to my still-1st place FBB team Awkward Silences. Then I changed it to Team Pretention. I wasn't exactly enamored with that name so after seeing the 40-Year Old Virgin changed to the current incarnation of Pedestal Pussies. One of the guys in the league, Mr. Kevin Day has started a FFB website, the Fantasy Football Calculator. Pretty cool, and I wish him luck with that.

Band On the Run

Miss Madelyn Rose

First things first. Today was my niece's first day of Kindergarten. A bit of an exciting day. I talked to her on the phone and she said she got to run around the gym. Here's to a wonderful first year for her.

So I was walking to a meeting today, minding my own business and enjoying the unusually cooler weather we've been having lately. I noticed a posse on bikes coming toward me. They all appeared to be carring large oddly-shaped plastic cases. I quickly deduced that they were members of the Spartan Marching Band, which was then confirmed by many of the t-shirts that they were sporting. Bandos are fine, I was actually one myself back in the day, and I don't have a problem with them or what they stand for. But any group in numbers can make one uneasy. Afte I survived the encounter with the calvary, I noticed the ground troops approaching. These were considerably more in number and I noticed that they were taking up the whole sidewalk. Here I am, one person, trying to walk against this impervious force that is the marching band. Now when I walk on the sidewalk, I give plenty of space to those walking in the opposite direction and those fast-walkers who pass me. I also expect the same from them. Every once in awhile I will encounter a group like the one above who take up the whole path. This is not a time for one to give up position. We all have an equal right to walk on the sidewalk. I do my best to stay on the sidewalk and even hope (but don't try) that someone will run into me, just so they realize their stupidity, lack of common sense, and total disregard of sidewalk etiquette. So I'm holding my own, toeing the grass-line, but remaining on the path when all of a sudden I'm hit. The enemy has drawn blood. Well not real blood per se, but more of the proverbial kind. I quickly look and see it was a baritone-like instrument that caused the damage. The enemy offered a quick apology, but the damage was done. August 25, 2005 will go down iin infamy as the day I survived an assault from a band-geek.

So ESPN has some new "This is SportsCenter" ads out. The first couple I've seen I've enjoyed. One has some anchor (Scott Van Pelt?) in the office with his director giving him some advice, a la a manager going to the mound to calm down his pitcher. The 2nd one I just saw had Dan Patrick and Stuart Scott coming onto the set where 2 players in Jets paraphanalia. The anchors told the guys they were in their seats. The fans then refused to move and then left and said "you don't have to be jerks about it." These ads may be my favorite on-going commericals. Ever.

Last thought. I'm thinking about eliminating Anonymous Comments as I'm getting too much spam these days.

And now here is your Random Wikipedia Entry for the day.

I Think I Can Remember Your Name

Students are starting to arrive back on campus. As a member of the ResLife staff here in my building I make sure I'm introducing myself to lots of people and getting to know my residents. Unfortunately there are too many names and faces to remember. I find myself talking to anybody and everybody and there is a bulletin board with our (me and the other ResLife staff) pictures and some info about us. So people recognize me and smile and say hi and more often then not I have to ask their name because I frankly do not remember. It is fun though getting to meet everyone.

Although this morning, I got thrown for a new loop. There was a girl checking in and I'm pretty sure I've never seen her before. I went out for a run with some folks and came back. She waved to me and I'm pretty sure she said "Hi Mark." I have no idea who this person is. Honestly. I mean, if she lived in the dorm last year, I'd at least recognize her. But no. Nothing. Now I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how she knows me. Maybe I've got a stalker. That would be a first. Looks like I'll be doing some recon.

You Made Me Feel Shiny and New

And today we feature the sweet words of one Ms. Ciccone.

I went out tonight and saw The 40 Year-Old Virgin. Quite an entertaining romp. Aside from the myriad of ridiculous and unnecessary remakes/reinterpretations that have dominated the summer movie station, 2005 will be remembered for Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Wedding Crashers, and The 40-Year Old Virgin. Unfortunately we got there during the previews and had to sit in the 3rd row. I've never had the opportunity to see a movie that close up. I'm glad that it wasn't an action movie, because the screen is so big up close you actually have to turn your head to see everything. Steve Carrell is such an underrated comedic actor and it is nice to see him finally getting his due. He's been the bit player -- hilarious in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman, but now is the starring man, and he shines. His character walks the fine line between creepy-single-middle-aged-man and realistic lonely-single-middle-aged-man that makes his character all the more believeable. Yes he has his toy collection from a kid and reads comic books, which are all characteristic of the asexual/unsexual single male. But there is another side to him that does want to sleep with a woman and develop a meaningful relationship. And the viewer starts to see his view of things and while it may not be the most conventional or normal lifestyle, we understand how he got there and realize there are far worse characteristics he could have.

I was chatting with someone about the movie earlier and I brought up with someone prior to seeing the movie. I made an allusion to AC Green, the former NBA player who midway through his career revealed that he was still a virgin. This was a big deal. NBA players along with all other professional athletes have the stereotype of being able to score with lots of women. Especially in the NBA where teams are small (10-15 players) and players have been known to be especially promiscuous (see: Shawn Kemp). I think the immediate reaction is "OK, this is a bit strange." Looking at it on another level, however, the guy (and others like him) deserve a certain amount of respect. It's not easy on any terms (socially, culturally) to refrain from sexual activity, let alone as a professional athlete. A lot of people do it because of religous beliefs, but on the same token there are plenty of others that don't heed to the beliefs. Youngsters need more AC Greens and less Shawn Kemps. As a side note, Mr. Green is now married and I'm assuming, no longer a virgin.

If anything, the final scene of the movie is an absolute riot. I also got a The Graduate vibe when Andy (Steve Carrell) was in the bathroom with the girl from the bookstore. Aside from Mr. Carrell's success, it is nice to see Judd Apatow finally move away from critical success/commercial non-success to critical & commercial success. He was the brains behind the prematurely cancelled TV series Freaks & Geeks and Undeclared.

Lastly, I purchased an inflatable chair (color = blue) the other-day. It took me the better part of an hour to blow it up, but was well worth it.

I Picked You Out, I Shook You Up

I was once in an awfully boring seminar when a friend and I decided to start checking out the fairer sex. We compiled a list of the most attractive women in the room. We both had a consensus #1 and the question was brought up "Is she out of your league?" I replied with something along the lines of "She's at the warning track. If I play all my cards right and the stars are aligned in precisely the right places, I have a chance with her." This is a question I've gotten more then once and so it's got me thinking about the whole "In Your League" subject.

In retrospect, my reply to the question was not that accurate. I replied more to the question of "Is she in your ballpark?" versus "Is she in your league?" If I was taking the analogy correctly, to be in the same league, I'd have to work butt off in the minors to reach the big show. Even then I would have to prove myself and perform on a consistent basis to stay in the big time. This is what I was alluding to in my response above. I'll put this out there, I can be a bit vain and Narcissistic at times, but I'm also well aware of the limits of my physical attractiveness. I'm a pretty good looking guy (can I get a witness?) and depending on the following factors: hair, facial hair, occasion, motivation, and wardrobe I can range from looking like a scrub to looking A-OK. In the scope of the League analogy, I consider myself a lifetime AAA player. I may have been called up to the majors a few times due to injuries/September call-ups, but I've never been able to prove myself and stay there. And you know what? I'm ok with this.

This League analogy fits well with the whole now-outdated "Baseball" references that we learned as youth to describe physical interactions with people we were dating/whatever. Side note, how skewed is this reference these days? I'm sure if we asked 4-6th graders, we would probably be shocked by the answers they gave us. Love & dating is a lot like baseball, specifically with us single folk. We go through slumps. Sometimes we go through extended hitting-streaks when we are clicking on all cylinders. We'll make the occasional error now and then. Some of us are patient hitters who will wait for the pitch they want to drive it to the opposite field. There are others of us that freely swing away and don't worry about striking out. Sometimes we get injured and do a rehab stint at the A or AA level. We might hit a home runs there and do well, but we'd rather be performing at our natural level. And sometimes we'd like that shot in the Big Leagues, just to show you what we've got.

Lovely Spam, Wonderful Spam

So here I am checking on the 'ol blog and much to my surprise I see 5 comments! 5 comments?! I think I only have about 5 readers. Actually, my own personal count is 8. And that is just based on those of you that leave comments here & those of you who I've talked about this in person. I'm thinking there are some regular readers out there that are just trolls. So we'll put my devoted fan-base at 10 readers. So I see that I've got 5 comments along with Anne's comments the other day on my elevator post and I'm thinking "I've hit my creative peak here. There is nowhere to go but down." So what shall I do? I think I'll retire this blog. Here I am at step 5 of the lifecycle of bloggers.

So I'm all excited that I have all these comments, so I go and check it out. Much to my chagrin, 3 of the 5 posts are anonymous spam. Damn you spam! Really, it's not a big deal. Luckily for me, my readership leans toward the more intellectual side of the intelligence/stupidity spectrum so I doubt any one of you will click on the links.

I've gotten semi-hooked on Sudoku. So far I've completed a couple of "Hard" puzzles. I have yet (really the patience/time) to complete an "Evil" one yet.

The time is now.

Feed My Frankenstein

This is per request of my mom. Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship on monday. I am a big Tiger Woods fan and very anti-Phil. He has the nick-name on the tour of "Lefty." As he also has some added weight around him (not a lot, but noticeable), I prefer the more-rhymy monniker, Hefty Lefty. Anyway so yay for Phil. You're still 8 majors away from Tiger.

To extend my comments on elevator culture that I did a couple posts back. I've started the habit of being the last one to hit the elevator button when I get in now. If someone presses the floor above or below mine (3 or 5), I'll simply get off there and then walk up or down a floor. I'm sure it looks strange, but to me it makes sense and I'm sure you'll all agree that I am strange in some way.

And to add on to my marriage discussion of sunday. Eloping has crossed my mind. In a strange story-book kind of way I like the idea of meeting someone new, quickly becoming infatuated with them and then getting married. Seeing it as a challege to make it succeed. Or eloping with someone I have been dating for awhile just...well because. So yeah if I suddenly get married someday, you heard it here first folks.

Last bit for the night. How many of you have heard the new Death Cab For Cutie song? I'll tell you right now, it's good. Their new album drops in September. I'll put it here first and predict that the album is going to explode. The past 2+ years their stock has really risen. There is the whole Seth Cohen/OC rep that they get. Then there is the success of Ben Gibbard's side project, The Postal Service. Add to that the semi-commercial success of more indie-esque bands recently and the result is a vast amount of commercial success for the band. And of course that will bring the requisite indie/hipster backlash. But they are one band I wouldn't mind becoming big.

We Could Be Married

Now Playing: Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress

How can you not love this band? I traveled home this weekend for a wedding and the three albums of theirs that I own (Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant & The Boy With the Arab Strap) were my car tunes for the trip. If you haven't heard them, give them a try, you will not be disappointed. Side note, Pitchfork's reviews can be a bit pretentious at times (OK, all of the time) but since High Fidelity is one of my more favorite movies, I enjoyed the FYHC,YWLaP review. Holy Acronyms Batman!

So yeah, I was at this wedding this weekend. It is a bit ironic/funny/sad because the bride was the first girl I really dated. That was way back during my freshman & sophomore years in high school so any feeling of ill-will or animosity are far gone. I tell people that I went to a former girlfriend's wedding and they're like "you went/were invited/are going?" And this isn't even the first ex-girlfriend's wedding I've been to. Out of my 4 relationships I've had in my life I've gone to 2 of their weddings. That's 50% folks. I'm not sure what to think about that. I mean is this normal? Or am I some sort of statistical nice-guy oddity? The whole "we can still be friends" cliche is supposed to be just that, a cliche, not something that is really supposed to happen. But here I am, remaining on good-enough terms to be invited to ex's weddings. Obviously they still think highly of me to invite me. At least I don't think that either of them were curtesy invites.

I enjoy weddings though, no matter who it is. For one, I get to dress-up. I enjoy looking good and wearing shirts & ties and what-not. I again sported my bright-green shirt with matching green & blue tie. This is a good combination for me, as I get many a complements on it. But I need to lay-off of it for awhile. I mean if I wear the combo too often, it will become devalued and lose its luster and allure. Gotta switch it up to please the ladies, ya know? That leads to the second reason I enjoy weddings, the women. Not that I've really ever been successful at picking up women at weddings, given the circumstances I should have a better track record. Usually there are a fair number of attractive, single women out there to be had. I think the thing is, the last few weddings I've been to, I'm friends with everyone there and they know me too well. Shoot. So this leads to the third reason I enjoy weddings, that being the requisite open bar. Alchohol that you don't have to directly pay for is always welcomed.

Of course weddings get me thinking about my own situation. Wondering if I'll ever find someone that I'll consider marrying or if I even actually want to get married someday. I'll be honest here, there are a lot of times I don't see myself getting married. There is a myriad of reasons for this. I am deftly afraid of a failing marriage. For whatever reason, I see that as the ultimate failure. When I get married I want it to be for good. Its funny because I'm really not afraid of failure in other aspects of my life, but for whatever reason I place a high value on marriage. I think that too many people out there see divorce as an easy way out of a bad situation and don't give much thought to the worse part of the "For better and for worse."

Over the last several years, I have started to realize my own sense of self. OK, what I mean is that I enjoy my independence and doing stuff on my own. I'm a very solitary person and enjoy being by myself a lot. There are things I want to do in life where I see having a life partner getting in the way. If I want to go take 3-4 months off and climb Mount Everest or sail down the Mississippi or walk the Appalachian trail I see a wife vehemently objecting if I do one, let alone all of these things. Really though, I'd want to find someone that would allow me the freedom to do things like this. And who knows, I may find someone that does, and that would be just fine by me.

I do know that I want kids. This may be a bit self-centered, but I know that my genes are too good to go to waste and I want to breed genetically superior offspring. It is kind of hard and still pretty socially unacceptable to do this by myself, especially for us males. At least women can go to a sperm bank and get pregnant. I really can't go to an ovum-bank, buy an incubator set and grow-my-own-kid.

But this doesn't mean I won't get married, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I'm too focused on my schoolwork and a career to worry about supporting a family. Honestly I do hope to get married someday. I see my married friends and my parents who've been married almost 32 years now and see immense amounts of love, devotion, and happines. And I know I want that someday.

Naked Naked Foul

So I moved into my new room on saturday. I'm enjoying my new digs. For one, my old room was in dear need of major cleaning/reorganization so this move helped me to do that. I've got more storage room then I know what to do with. I'm sitting here looking at the bookshelf and only 1 of the 6 shelves is full. And 3.5 of them have nothing on. I need to fill up on books or something. I also took time to reorganize my CDs. It has been quite awhile (years) since I did that. So they are now in alphabetical order. We'll see how long they stay that way. Then there are the walls. I've got too many of them. Or more specifically, I've got too many BARE walls. I need to spruce the place up. Give it some of that great Mark personality. I did go to the poster store yesterday. I picked up a new R.E.M. poster. It appears to be from the 2001 Reveal-era. I also got a poster with a very vivid red rose and it says "Passion: Nothing in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." I really bought it for the imagery of the rose. I could do without the hokey saying on it, but I'll live. I also picked up a couple of 8 x 11.5 poster cards. One is the CBGB logo and the other is a 4 x Marilyn Monroe Warhol. I'll have to pick up some more to express my personality and give warmth to my room.

I didn't move far, just up to the 4th floor from the 3rd. A seemingly innocuous transfer. I have noticed, however, that I have been using the elevator more. Primarily going up. I can actually justify using the elevator now. The 3rd floor is kinda the limbo floor of the elvator world. Yeah, you can use the elevator to go up, but it's 2 floors man, you can walk it. Whenever I did take the elevator to the 3rd floor I felt like a sham, a scab. I could feel everyone's eyes in the elevator looking at me and thinking to themselves "who is this guy that can't walk up 2 flights? That makes one more stop and wastes my time to get to my room." Now that I am on the 4th floor, I can rightfully justify using the elevator. Not just that, but I've started to become an elevator snob myself. I find myself looking down on those that take the elevator to any floor below mine. Does this mean that those on the 7th floor are the ultimate elevator snobs of my building. In their eyes, do they think that anyone below them should take the steps? The only time I take the elevator down is if I'm doing laundry or moving something. I always take the steps down and it abhors me when I see someone standing on the 2nd floor waiting to go down. Its kinda funny because I'll see them waiting and I'll be down on the ground floor before them. It takes what? 10 seconds to walk down 1 flight of stairs. And here they are waiting for an elevator to come. Then they have to wait for the doors to open, get on, doors close, then move. That is an eternity folks. Just walk down the damn stairs. I tell ya, elevator culture is tricky subject.

The Trees Will Bend

So I'm moving over the weekend. Nothing special, I'm just moving up a floor so I can be in an official ResLife room. A bit of a different set-up to the room and it's got A/C...those are about the only difference. Anyway so I'm looking forward to this. A different view of things. And it's an excuse for me to clean up my room and decorate it a bit. So I was at Home Depot tonight getting some stuff and I saw some woman with some big plants. So I decided to check it out. They must be trying to get rid of their foliage because all these big potted plants are $19.99 or cheaper. So after examining them a bit I settled on one. To say its a plant is a bit of an understatement. There are 3 palm tree growths coming out of the pot standing a good 5 feet tall. It's an impressive thing, this tree I've got. I even left the room, came back, and was surprised a bit when I came back into the room. It'll be the centerpiece to my new room. I'll have to add some other stuff, but methinks I'm going to be liking this here tree.

I Was Sleeping On the Couch

Bring Back the Couch Campaign.
Not much to report tonight. I've been going through training for my oh-so-sexy ResLife job. It's all day and I don't get a chance to rest so I'm plum snookered. Add to that the crazy hot temps we've been having which have caused me to sweat uncontrollably. In spite of the multiple showers and multiple shirt changes throughout the day, I still feel gross. Anyway, click on the above week to help bring back the Daily Show's Couch.

We Are All On Drugs

Rafael Palmeiro tests positive for steroids.
Huge news here. Rafael has had quite a productive year. Recently he became only the 4th person in baseball history to have both 3000 hits and 500 home runs. Additionally, last spring he testified in front of Congress that he has not taken steroids. So far the majority of players who have tested positive have either been no-name minor leaguers, or no-name major leaguers. This is by-far the biggest name to test positive. He is a potential Hall-of-Famer, but this will certainly taint his image and all success he has seen in the sport. You have to question the guy's intelligence in the fact that 1) he denied under oath of taking steroids and 2) that he would have the gall to actually go out and use them after the fact.

Naturally he has appealed his 10 game suspension. OK, maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Perhaps he is innocent and that the positive test is merely because of some OTC or prescription "cold" medicine that he is taking. There have been more then a few instances in the past in various sports where athletes have tested positive for a banned substance that is in a common medication. No matter what the case, when you reach a certain level of competition where testing is common, it is both the responsibility of the coach and athlete to be aware of the banned substances and which of those are in the medicine they are taking. Yes, on the international level, the list of banned substances is extensive. It can be hard to keep track of everything, but that is not an excuse. In the end, it is each player's responsibility.

We'll see what happens with Raffy, but it will certainly shift opinions about him. Even though the guy has HOF numbers, there has been discussion if the guy is truly a HOF caliber player. This test will put a skeptical eye on all his numbers. I will not be surprised if he eventually does not make the HOF, or isn't elected for a truly long time.

For those that read this, I'd love to hear your comments.