perpetual memory loss

Last night I rewatched Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and I was reminded about how awesome samurai movies are when done right–sometimes even if they are done really wrong.  It gave me the idea to write about one of my absolute favorite samurai movies.  When I first heard of this movie, many moons ago, it was spoken of in hushed tones.  It was supposedly so awesome that upon viewing it there was a chance that your face would melt like the asian dude from Raiders.  No one we knew had, or even knew of where to get a copy of it, but we luckily had the first few minutes on a beat ass warped VHS tape.  After the first few minutes, however, the picture would turn to mush and all that was left was to be teased with sounds of slicin’ and dicin’.

I was completely sold after watching the short intro, and I made it my mission to find this video.  Over the next few weeks the intro to the movie played through my mind like a familiar melody.  It was like having a song stuck in your head and yet not knowing which song it is.  But no matter where you go you hear snippets of music that bring it back to the forefront of your mind and hopefully closer to recognition.  Everywhere I went I could hear it playing, but it was an incomplete tune.  For the sake of my sanity I had to find this movie, and let the full melody of samurai savagery be unleashed.  After weeks of procuring small second hand stores, retail outlets, and garage sales, I finally found someone that could order me one, but it would be expensive.  Was it worth it?  There was only one way to find out.  I had to complete my quest pick-up the wooden carpenter’s cup and take a drink (if you’re counting that makes two Indiana Jones references in one post).

A few long weeks later my copy came in and we all decided to make an event of it.  We bought beer, food, and then crowded around our TV like the first cavemen upon encountering a fire sent down by the gods in the form of lightning.  Could this movie live up to the incredible hype that we had created around it? Of course it could, but would it?  This movie, Shogun Assassin, melted my brain with its sheer awesomeness.  One of the greatest martial arts or samurai movies ever created.  Our brains quivered, heaved, and spasmed as Ogami Itto embarked on his quest for revenge with his toddler son strapped to his back.  Facing the Masters of Death, ninjas, and countless hordes of samurai all with his son on his back completely unscathed or fazed by the danger (in fact the movie is narrated by his son).  All enemies were mere sword fodder for Itto.  His skills were unmatched, his form flawless. 

This movie is a definite must see if you like good movies that don’t bore the shit out of you.  If you haven’t seen it you may have heard it before.  The movie inspired Quentin Tarantino, and can be heard in Kill Bill 2 during the scene where Beatrix puts her kid to sleep.  Luckily you won’t have to go on some arduous trek to find this movie.  Thanks to the conveniences of modern technology I found it on YouTube in about thirty seconds.  It is only the first 10 minutes, but it will give you a taste of this movies greatness.  I’m sure there is a digital copy out there somewhere.  If someone finds it let me know.  This movie is best seen with friends, alcohol, and on a real TV, but its greatness is in no way diminished by watching it on the computer:

[youtube 2Xu3A6Zp7-4 nolink]

It’s been around 24 hours since I have seen Avatar.  I have let it percolate in my head and I have also had the chance to to hash out some of my thoughts with fellow geeks.  What follows will be spoiler heavy so if you haven’t seen it yet and don’t wish to know anything then stop reading.

First I’ll start with my gripes.

One of the biggest annoyances in the movie was the lack of any character development for the villains.  They were all just evil dudes who were bent on destruction no matter the cost.  In the case of Col. Quaritch he was just a Marine that was hell bent on kicking ass and killing whomever, or whatever, was in his way.  Understandable but he was like a person devoid of any human emotions who seemed to hate the Na’Vi for no apparent reason.  If he was the only person in the movie like that I would let it slide.  However, virtually all the Marines (except for two) in the movie were also one-dimensional characters devoid of any moral compass or any semblance of a human emotion.  I find it hard to believe that out of the thousands of people there 99.9% of them were completely on board with massacreing the aliens just because they wanted to get some unobtainium (stupid name btw).  Besides I don’t think there is a need for anymore stereotyping of Marines as crazy, evil whack-a-doos.  There was just too much black and white in the movie, and rarely were there any shades of grey–morally speaking.

Secondly, I get the whole allusions to slavery and the plight of the American Indians, but it was a bit much.  Actually it wasn’t even an allusion it was pretty much a straight up comparison to the westward expansion of the United States.  The unobtainium is gold, and the Marines are the evil frontiersman who murdered and pillaged their way across the west.  Now is not the time for a moral or historical debate about that time period.  What bugged me was the ham-fisted attempt to wed that time period with the modern one.  Throwing in phrases like “shock and awe” and “fight terror with terror” took me out of the movie momentarily.  I get it you’re against the Iraq War, slavery, and westward expansion.  Good to know, but unfortunately it was all shoe-horned into the story.  Plus there are other movies that have done a better job with those themes–namely Return of the Jedi.  The ending of both movies is basically the same.  The peace loving simple people defeat the technologically superior, but moralistically inferior people–except in Avatar there is the added element of a Deity that interjects and helps out.

Ok now you may think that with all that griping and complaining that I hated the movie, but if you thought that you’d be wrong.  Watching this movie I got the same feeling I got when I watched Jurassic Park, Star Wars, or Terminator 2.  This movie is a game-changer.  All the work that was done by ILM over the years in creating digital sets and characters was put to spectacular use in Avatar.  The interaction movie is virtually seamless in blending all the real with the digital.  Watching this movie totally blew my mind.  (And despite my gripes with the story, the story was actually pretty good.  There is a decent and simple plot line to follow, there’s a bit of a love story, and there are some moral themes that could have been powerful if I wasn’t beaten over the head with them.) The 3D was great because it wasn’t a gimmick.  The characters weren’t breaking the fourth wall trying to engage the audience.  There wasn’t an overabundance of spears, vehicles, or whatever coming directly at the camera.  Instead the 3D was used as a way to create a more immersive environment.  Pandora felt more real.  There was more depth to the world, and this helped to draw you in.  This is how these technologies were meant to be used.  I finish by restating what I’ve already said.  The movie is a game changer, and it must be seen in 3D.  This movie should become a blueprint for how 3D and CGI should be used to create new immersive worlds.  If it does and other directors keep improving it then there should be a lot of exciting movies in the future.  It’ll be amazing to see where this all leads too.  So if I was going to give this movie a grade I would say it’s a solid 95%, so go see it now.

I have always been fairly open on this site writing about my life and occurrences that happen to me–whether good or bad–and that will continue. Beware this post is only for those of you who like drama. So the latest drama-rama to come into my life happened yesterday and it all started with a self-deprecating facebook post:

Sometimes I amaze myself with my nerdiness.

It seems innocent enough and I totally though it was. However it was an impetus for all that was to come. What happened next was completely unexpected. My brother’s ex commented thusly:

…we are all amazed by it! XO ***** takes after you so much. You have no idea how much!!

I replied that yes I did teach that person a lot about how to be a nerd to which she responded:

Yes you did…you really did. She LOVEs you with all of her perfect heart. I have HUNDREDS of cards, drawings, paintings, and many many more things she has made with such care for her Uncle *****. It will be so much fun going through all that some day. Let us know next time your in town, we would love to take you nerds to dinnner.

Dinner with his ex?

Sure why wouldn’t I go to dinner with her and ****?

hmmmm.. I wonder! I guess your brother doesn’t mean very much to you.

Haha well I guess it’s a good thing I have you around to tell me what I feel, btw nice try with the guilt trip.

I guess I know now what kind of person you REALLY are!

I just thought that your brother meant something to you. Obviously you don’t remember all the things that happened. I can see why **** feels like he doesn’t have a family except for the girls and me. That’s too bad. My brother recently got divorced for the same reasons and I would never in a million years have a relationship with her. I see my niece and nephew through my brother, not his ex. It is just messed up.

 

Omg dramatic much. Don’t even pretend to tell me how I feel about my brother or my family because you are clueless to that fact. And I didn’t realize I had to get my contact list approved by both of you. If you have a problem with me talking to her tough shit. If matt has a problem with it he can talk to me. Otherwise I’m just not going to allow you to dictate who I talk to or how I “supposedly” feel about ****. And on last thing ***** don’t you ever fucking presume you know what type of person I am because you have no idea.

Okay, first of all, I am pretty sure I know exactly the type of person you are. Secondly, I am not trying to DICTATE to you who you can and can not talk to. There is a code on how you should treat your family members. The way **** is being treated by you and your family is ridiculous and it shows how you view **** as a brother. **** always told me stories about the loyalty that you guys as a family had, and I absolutely do not see it AT ALL! Family doesn’t treat family this way. I am not pretending to know how you feel about your brother, from this point of view it sure as hell looks like you don’t think much of him. I hope this is not true and I hope you and him remain close. I just think maybe you should look at it from another persons point of view, or are you too good to do that?

Well don’t act like you’re the only one that cares about ****. I do too but I also live my life how I choose and I don’t need anyone to look down their nose at me and the choices I make.

 

Well, that’s fine, but you may loose family over choices. There are consequences for the way you treat someone. So, I guess if you having a relationship with your brother’s ex wife is more important, that is your choice to make and I can’t say or do anything about it. But it is also my choice not to have people like that in my life. As far as I go, I would rather not talk to you. **** on the other had, I don’t know how he feels, he can make his own choices.

 

Wow it’s amazing how it went from me being civil to someone to now I’m having a relationship with her. I had no idea it was that serious between us. How about you quit acting like a child and judging everyone? If you don’t want to talk to me over something so trivial that’s fine. I don’t need such petty childish people in my life. And I still haven’t heard anything from my brother so I wonder why the fuck you are instigating and trying to drive a wedge between us? Do you get off on creating soap opera like drama? Maybe you should find a more productive and life affirming hobby.

 

Whatever. You just keep convincing yourself of your perfectness. **** will make his own decision and I speak up for what I believe in.

 

Wow I can’t believe you unfriended me that’s really lame but whatever. Look I don’t know why everything has to be black and white for you. Just because I’m civil to her does not mean I’m disloyal to my brother it just means that I don’t feel like carrying a grudge agaisnt her for my whole entire life, and here you are creating even more problems by making a big deal out of the fact that I’m nice to her. I don’t know what your deal is and why you feel that you have to push people away because of that. It probably has more to do with your own insecurities than anything else. I will always love my brother and will always be loyal to him but I’m not going to spend my whole life being bitter about something that happened a long time ago, and quite frankly it’s between them and not me. So here we are now with you acting all immature about this and trying to drive a wedge between ****and me. We are left with a few choices either you grow up and we all move on, you pretend this never happened and we go our seperate ways, or you talk to **** about this and ge gets in touch with me. Unless he has recently been struck deaf, dumb, blind, and mute I expect to hear from him on this. I’m done arguing with you over something so inane via email. I hope for all the best for you all but I won’t be responding to anymore of your emails. Like I said if **** has a problem with this I should hear it from him and not you.

Hey, if I overstepped my bounds, I am sorry. I just care so deeply about **** and I really hate seeing him get hurt, it kills me. 

 SO I’m not sure what the whole point of this exercise has been except for hoping that one of my 3 readers may have some insight to help me out or maybe tell me how I could’ve proceeded differently. Who knows at this point if I will ever talk to my brother again considering that the succubus now controls or has access to all modes of communication with him. All I know is I’m drinking a lot this weekend.

Here I am living in Washington DC.  If you asked me 6 months ago what my life would be like I would have told you that I would still be living in NY working some crummy job to make ends meet.  However things didn’t work out that way and instead of working a crummy job to support myself in NY I now live in crummy DC (it’s not really that crummy) and have a good job (albeit I don’t work enough).   So what have I learned this past month, well quite a few things actually.

1. DC has the worst subway system ever (well maybe not the worst but it still kind of blows).  I think it was designed by a bunch of people who had no idea how to design a subway, and didn’t believe in the need to design with an eye towards future needs (more on this later though in an upcoming pet peeves post).

2. Holy shit it’s humid as fuck here and this is a mild (MILD they said hah!) summer.

3.  The transition from student to working stiff has been painless and (gasp!) I actually like my job and look forward to going to work (double gasp!).  For the last four plus years I have done nothing but go to school, drink, do homework, drink, and at times sleep.  It’s was rough but work (or the real world as some people call it) is so much easier.  I work my shift then I’m off to do whatever I want (drink) without worrying about some paper I have to write.  It’s fantastic.  For the first time in years my free time is actually my free time.

4.  The Natinals stink.

5. My new neighborhood (Capitol Hill) is one of the coolest neighborhoods I have ever lived in.  There are a shit ton of bars, restaurants, and I’m close to everything.  There’s 4 parks nearby and the neighborhoods are gorgeous and everything is within walking distance.  The only thing that could make this neighborhood better is if it was in NY or Mr. Burns built his little sun blocking thing-a-majig here–because it’s hot as fuck here.

6. Just like people in NY, people in DC liberally sprinkle the word “literally” throughout their conversations constantly even though it’s not needed.  Example: “I went to the grocery store and there were literally dozens of different kinds of cereal on the shelves.”  Because if you just told me there were dozens of different kinds of cereal at the grocery store I totally wouldn’t believe you unless you added in literally.

7. People are very courteous here.  The first time I rode the subway I was flabbergasted that people actually waited for other people to exit the subway cars before they entered. WTF I am so not used to that.  I am used to fighting my way onto a train whilst others are fighting their way off, and then being punked by a spunky latin mom and her stroller.  Now whilst the courtesy thing looks orderly and seems nice I don’t think it is more effective than everyone just scrambling in and out like roaches when the lights come on.

8. Living a mile away from the Capitol and two miles from the White House is not as cool as it sounds.

9. I have a lot of work ahead of me.  So far I have noticed that there are not a whole lot of Coors Light drinkers here in DC.  That means it time for me to get my hands dirty preaching the good work and converting all these lost sheep roaming the hills of the Capitol.  I’ve done it before and as Pete Coors is my witness I will do it again.

10. This city is growing on me like a fungus.  I am really starting to like it here, but I still miss NY.  And I think I always will because it was the only place I have ever lived that I didn’t want to leave and, since I was a little chitlin living at home, it was the only place that has felt like home to me in a long, long time.

So that’s just a quick summary of a few things that I have learned (or in the case of the Natinals has been brutally reinforced) since I have moved to DC.  New posts should be coming along fairly regularly now since I have started settling and the worst part of moving is now over.  Look forward to random posts, nerdy posts, and drunken posts in the not too distant future.

I have consistently been a late adopter of technology.  The last time I jumped on the techno band wagon from the get go was when I bought an mp3 player back before there was such a thing as an iPod (it was the equivalent of the Zack Morris cell phone).  Needless to say I got burned and I learned my lesson.  Since that time I have always waited and waited for new technology to go through a few iterations before I buy it.  Last Friday I decided to finally jump on the iPhone band wagon, and although I wish I would have done it sooner I am glad that I waited for them to work out some of the bugs.

Anyways I have been trolling the app store looking for good apps and wanted to promote one of my favorite apps so far.  The app is from BeamItDown Software and it is a collection of 150 Great Books (and counting).  Usually I feel the same way about digital books as I do about new technology, I really don’t like it.   There’s really nothing that can beat reading a real book, as opposed to the digital incarnation, but the price was right so I figured what the hell I’ll give it a try.  Up until this point I have only really read research papers and the like in digital form, and those usually don’t exceed fifty pages or so, but even those few pages are taxing on my eyes.  Now with all my complaining and griping about digital books you might be asking “well I thought you liked this app?”  I do but I just had to get some minor complaints out of the way first.

Lately I have been packing–in preparation for my imminent move to somewhere, don’t know where just yet–and I filled up two twenty gallon plastic storage containers with my books.  And when I went to move them into the other room I almost gave myself a hernia.  Seriously books are fucking heavy and annoying to move.  I had forgotten about that.  So until the time comes where I settle down and have a room dedicated as my library I think I am going to calm down on buying books.  Secondly, I went to do my laundry the other day and usually along with my colossal bag of dirty laundry, detergent, softener, and bounce sheets, I usually take my phone, iPod, and a book to read.  Now instead I just grabbed my bag of laundry and my iPhone and I was off listening to my music during the long trek to the laundromat, and once there I dove into A Tale of Two Cities, which is a book I have been meaning to read for years.  Despite my aversion to digital books I really enjoyed it and so far I haven’t really felt that I am missing that much by reading it off of my phone.  Actually it’s pretty damn great, and bonus because there are so many choices of books to read I will never be without a book.  And besides it’s much better than carrying my satchel (it’s not a man purse it’s a satchel) into the city filled with books and what not.

By the way the app is now 50% off and is only $4.99–which when added to the price of a new iPhone is cheaper than the Kindle, and the Kindle doesn’t play music or make phone calls (suck on that amazon). That $4.99 price tag is also  cheaper than buying even one of the books on the list.  Speaking of the list here are some of the highlights of what books are included on the app: a collection of Dickens, Twain, Doyle, Dumas, Hardy, London, Poe, and Wells.  Oh but wait there’s more it also includes political tracts from Hamilton, Locke, Marx, Milton, Paine, and Plato.  And there is a ton of other stuff including Epic Poetry, regular poetry, and fables.  There is really a grip of worthwhile books on the list just begging to be read, and hey did I mention it’s really a phenomenal deal.  The app itself works smoothly and saves where you left off in every book that you are reading.  Instead of simulating a book and page turns this app works like a “teleprompter” which makes it easier to read.  You can set it to move automatically so that you don’t have to touch the screen and can just keep reading.  Personally I hate the mode because I either feel that I am being rushed or that it’s moving too slow–I haven’t found the “just right” speed yet–and besides I like to read well written passages over and over again so I can fully appreciate them.  So I’d rather move the script on my own, but the option is there which is nice.

However, there are a couple add-ons I would like to see.  One is a way to highlight, mark, or dog-ear certain passages.  I have the tendency to write notes and bracket particularly good passages, but the ability to write notes is probably asking for a bit much so I would settle for a way to just highlight passages for reference later on.  Secondly, I would like some kind of page reference that lets me know the approximate page number that I am currently reading.  One of the benefits of reading books is noting the progress you make each time you sit down and read for a few hours, and that is really lost on this format.  Other than those minor gripes the app is the tops and well worth the money.  I don’t think I’ll ever go completely digital but being able to have so many good books on hand at all times is priceless (cliche I know, but also true).

Thanks to crunchgear for the pic.

Today I drug myself to my computer to begin the process of writing more cover letters and to scour the internet for more jobs.  It never happened though because I made myself a pot of coffee and turned on the TV and as I was searching around I saw that G4 was having their E3 coverage.  Some days it is down right fantastic to be a nerd and today was one of those days.  I spent the better part of the day watching Microsoft’s XBOX 360 E3 presentation.  It was two hours chalk full of surprises that whetted my appetite for the fall releases.  So for those of you that are gainfully employed here are some of my favorites (in no particular order).

The Beatles Rock Band–even though I generally suck at Rock Band I will think about getting this game just because it looks great and I love The Beatles.  Besides how cool would it be to play Drive My Car in Shea Stadium in front of 50,000 screaming fans?

Modern Warfare 2–the first Modern Warfare was awesome and I didn’t even explore the multi-player features, a mistake I won’t make again.  It looks like Infinity Ward upped the ante on this version and the level displayed at E3 looked great–especially when you get to drive and fight on a snowmobile, which had a Bond feel to it.  The 360 version will also have two exclusive map packs.

Halo: ODST–Bungie is one of those developers that I will pretty much buy anything they make because they are one of the best out there.  The fact that this is a new Halo game, which plays differently than previous incarnations, and you can count me hyped and excited to play this game.  Also Bungie teased a prequel to the Halo series entitled Halo: Reach.

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Well it has been a dogs age since I have updated the ol’ blog.  I have been exceptionally busy over the last month or so trying to finish grad school.  I had a severe case of senioritis and finding the motivation to finish up my last few papers was problematic at best.  Lucky for me in lieu of motivation I turned to Rock Star energy drink and like always it did the trick.  So I’m happy to report that as of the 17th I am now finished with school, until I decide to go back again that is.  As of now though I’m having to adjust to the idea of not continuing on with school in the fall for my PhD. and instead with settling for entering the workforce again.  It’s a weird feeling and being unemployed sucks especially in this economy.  But as they say nothing good ever comes to you except through hard work and sacrifice, that is unless your parents are rich and they hook you up with a trust fund and a corner office in the family business, neither of which I am holding my breath for since my parents have neither.  Now it is time for me to put my nose to the grind stone and get myself a decent job.  So look forward to more regular posting, since I have loads of time on my hands, and more drunken posts and stories, since  I’ll inevitably be despondent at my lack of progress in finding a job.

So I have been hard at work on my paper this entire weekend. Actually, I was supposed to be working on this paper all weekend.  However, instead of doing actual work I have been procrastinating, well, like it’s my job.  So Sunday I turned on my XBOX 360 so I could listen to some music whilst writing, but before I started playing my writing music, I started looking at some of the new arcade games.  One game in particular caught my eye, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (and also check the developers blog).  I decided to check out the demo, and damn I was hooked with a quickness.  Although $10 can be a steep price for a broke ass student like myself I didn’t think twice about buying it.  This game is amazing and I spent the better part of my Sunday afternoon furiously killing some fools.

The game is about some dude who washes dishes–amazingly I don’t think he is Mexican haha–who dies or something and somehow lives and wants revenge.  Someone also kidnaps his sister and he needs to save her.  The cut scenes are done as comic strips and the whole style of the game is very comic booky.  The game does a very good job of feeling like a comic book come to life.  Each level feels like individual frames of a comic book that you are slowly progressing through.  Obviously this is all part of the design, but the fact that it comes through so clearly, and works so well, speaks highly of the designer not dropping the ball on his vision.  The actual gameplay though is kick ass and the closest approximation for it is Ninja Gaiden.  If you like Ninja Gaiden you’re going to like this game.  If you like the action of Ninja Gaiden, but your fingers aren’t nimble enough to hit the combos (coughneverbesocialcough), you will most likely enjoy this game.  It has all the cool action without the mind-numbing and finger contorting combos of Ninja Gaiden (although if you play for long enough your hands will cramp up like the caretakers).  Oh yah by the way did I mention that there are zombie in the game?  No?  Well there are, so bonus points for the zombie slayage, and you even get a chainsaw in the game to slash those zombies back to hell.  Also of note there are sweet executions that you can perform to finish off your enemies.  One of my favs is when the Dishwasher grabs the psuedo-FBI agents gun and uses it to splatter said agents brains onto the wall.

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Today I had a nice surprise waiting for me on my front porch.  It was a wrinkled, rain warped manila envelope, inside of which was my official Honorable Discharge certificate from the Marines.  I’d like to especially thank the postal service for doing everything in their power to make sure that I got this envelope in terrible condition.  So thanks guys you really earned your pay.

by Shep Sheperton

Port St. Loosey-Goosey, Fl.–Today was the last day of Spring Training for the World Champion Gotham Rats.  Tomorrow they will begin the move north and start preparing for their Opening Day series against the Good Griefs.  The atmosphere here this spring was drastically different from last year when they were considered the league under-dogs by many of the best baseball minds.  That won’t happen twice, however, as most analysts have jumped on the bandwagon and are predicting that the Rats will be strong contenders for the title this year.

Starting third basemen Evan Longoria noticed the change also, “You know, last year we just wanted to be competitive and show people that we can play ball, but this year we have a bit of a chip on our shoulders.  We know we can play and we plan on defending out title.”  His sentiments were mirrored by the trio of sluggers Howard, Teixeira, and Fielder.

“Ryan Howard likes the way this team looks.  Ryan Howard thinks that there are some real good players on this team, we will have good chemistry,” boasted Ryan Howard. When asked about his propensity to strikeout he replied, “Shit son, when Ryan Howard hits 45 homers and drives in 130 RBI’s every year, it doesn’t matter how many strikeouts Ryan Howard has.  Ryan Howard is a force to be reckoned with, like a tornado or something.”

“I’m just here to contribute to the team in anyway that I can,” droned Teixeira in one of his cliched statements.

Newcomer Prince Fielder was in good spirits today and remarked, “I think I’ll do much better this year.  New York has plenty of vegetarian restaurants so it won’t be so hard for me to find a tofu burger.  It was damn near impossible for me to find that shit in Milwaukee.  Every time I asked for one some joker would give me a Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger.  Man that shit was whack!”  Prince then meandered off to the outfield apparently looking for some food.

Meanwhile the Manager, Pablo Rodriguez, summed up his team stating, “Well all I can say is that this is a top notch organization from the top to the bottom.  Our ownership puts us in a position to compete every year, and we picked up some good youngsters in the draft.  Once we bring up David Price, and add him to the already formidable Shields, Lester, and Liriano, well our pitching is going to be tits.  Offensively we are even better than last year with the additions of Dunn, Prince, and Tulo.  Honestly, we have a strong team that is well-balanced offensively and defensively.  We have some good vets and some promising youngsters, and I expect great things from all of them.”

One of the most upbeat players in camp was Ubaldo Jimenez who stated “Main, bodee bop fastball boodoop doop err good main, badop pop, yah you know, pa toop whoop.”  No one ever knows what Ulbaldo is saying but you can’t argue with his upside so most players have just learned to encourage him with lots of nodding and high-fives.

The Rats are chomping at the bit to get this season started and Opening Day seems more like a year away rather than just one week.  Regardless, this team does look formidable and unlike last year they have confidence in themselves.  That should help them get over the hump and back into the playoffs.  Rats fans are in for a treat this year as this team should hit the ground running firing on all cylinders from the get go.  When asked about expectations for the year Carl Crawford bluntly boasted, “To win it all again!”

Team Moves

The Rats sent P David Price down to Triple-A McKracken where he will sit around and play Xbox 360 for a month while the Rats try to squeeze another year of eligibility out of him.

Also Marco Scutaro will potentially be sent back to the Dominican Republic for a box of Puerto Rican rum, but negotiations are stuck because the Dominicans don’t think he is worth 5 bottles of Don Q.

Shep Sheperton is the beat reporter for the Gotham Rats, and when not begging for a quote can be found crying in the women’s bathroom because the whole entire organization hates him.