| It's been a long time |
[Apr. 30th, 2010|06:24 am] |
I really know why I'm writing this. Most likely, no one will ever read it and I really should be asleep right now. But at the very least, I'll get some personal benefit from reflecting on this little. And hell, maybe somebody will read it, although I doubt that they'll get a whole lot out of it.
I don't really know how I ended up back on this thing for the first time in three and a half years. It was somewhat randomly triggered by listening to Defy Gravity. I'm kind of surprised this thing hasn't been deleted or even that livejournal's still around.
I'm not really planning on writing in this consistently ever again, so I don't see the point in saying anything about what my life has been like in the past three years. I didn't use this to do much other than vent about the Phillies, which is kind of entertaining now that they've actually had some success. Other than that, the entries didn't do much for me. However, this livejournal is a pretty rare remnant of a period of my life that was pretty significant, even if there's not a whole lot remaining from it.
I'm not really in contact with any of the people who used to read these entries anymore and, except for one remaining link, this part of my life could have easily not existed. I spent a lot of time in high school trying to convince myself it hadn't. I didn't want to admit that I had ever liked Eragon or that I ever made so many posts on assorted fantasy forums or that I was really one of those people who lived a second online life with online friends. It really did give me some confidence at a time when I didn't have a lot of it though. At the time, it was actually a pretty great thing for me. I can honestly say I was pretty happy. I miss it sometimes too. Yes, it was nerdy and maybe a little weird, but I don't think that happiness and those friends were fake. I finally revealed some of this to my high school friends last year, but I don't think they really know what I was like then. I almost want to show them this just so they can see some of the things I actually said back then.
I'm pretty nostalgic person, so I guess I just enjoy thinking about these kinds of things. But I'm also coming to the end of a kind of lonely freshman year that's caused me to think about middle school more and more, and it really makes me appreciate how important this slightly weird phase/life/whatever was for me. I've been a bit of a baby all year long about how everything isn't as good as it was in high school and how I don't really know or like where my life is going. I've let myself get a bit too defeated. I've spent a lot of time in the past three or four years trying to change myself from the person I was in late middle school/early high school, but I think I could use a little bit of that person now.
And now the sun is coming up. I should probably be going. Maybe I'll post again some time in the distant future. Who knows. |
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| Dammit |
[Sep. 30th, 2006|07:36 pm] |
The Phillies didn't make the playoffs again. Which led me to think about who has been the most pathetic franchise in the history of Major League Baseball. It's basically one of these:
Milwaukee Brewers (Established 1969, 1 postseason appearance, 1 World Series appearance)
Washington Senators/Texas Rangers (Established 1961, 3 postseason apperances)
Philadelphia Phillies (Established 1883, 1 World Series in 5 appearances, 5 postseason appearances)
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals (Established 1969, 1 postseason appearance)
Chicago Cubs (Established 1876, 2 World Series in 16 appearances, 20 postseason appearances)
I thought about the Rockies (1 postseason appearance) and Devil Rays (nothing at all), but they haven't existed for long enough.
Anyway, of those teams, I'd say it has to be the Expos. They tend to make me feel a little better about the Phillies. The Phillies are definitely up there in the top three, along with the Brewers. So yea.
I actually kind of wish I was really pissed right now, but it's not like I didn't see it coming when the Dodgers kept winning. So yea.
Well, this isn't going to be a bitch about the Phillies LJ anymore. UVA's football season is starting now though, so it can turn into rants about them. |
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| Phillies |
[Sep. 25th, 2006|10:45 pm] |
I was kind of holding off because I'm superstitious, but tonight was incredibly frustrating, so I couldn't resist.
Well, the Phillies are now tied for the Wild Card lead, although they WERE winning. The Dodgers/Padres are the only teams in the running, although one has to win their division. Right now, they're tied with the Dodgers, and the Padres are 1.5 games ahead. However, they're winning now, so it could be 2. Anyway, the Phillies have a relatively soft schedule, with three against both the Nationals and Marlins, but that doesn't necessarily guarantee anything. This is the closest the Phillies have ever come to the Wild Card in my life, (last year, was pretty close, but they weren't winning the thing in the final week) and if they screw this up, I'm going to be really pissed. Good pitching matchups though, so we'll see. |
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| Like, School Crap |
[Sep. 15th, 2006|11:26 pm] |
Um, yea, I know I meant to update about something else, but yea, school.
Well, I mean, the first day of school was like, uber suckage, but it's gotten a lot better. I have somebody in all my classes except Chem. Lunch sort of sucks, but like, not too bad. I don't have any particularly exciting teachers, but I don't hate any of them yet. But yea, whatever, here's my schedule.
Latin-Cool people, slightly annoying teacher, but it's the only class I have with my best friend, so probably one of my better classes.
Band-I mean, it's the same as always. Slightly better since it's not first period this year.
English-I hope/think I actually have a good English teacher this year.
Math-Yea, trig this year. I'm one of two sophomores in the class, but fortunately, I'm pretty good friends with the other.
Western Civ-Really weird/stupid teacher, not great people, pretty boring class in general.
Lunch-I mean, it's good one out of eight days when Jeff and Meredith are in it. Other than that, it's me and Joe.
Chem-This class just sucks. Really easy teacher who really doesn't teach, and nobody who I can even have a conversation with.
Health/Swimming-Health is the dumbest class ever, but it's got good people in it. Swimming is like, the best thing ever.
So yea, that's my day. Now, this year, I've decided to/my mom made me do more extracurricular things. Now, generally what this means is that I'm just spending all my time at the pool. For fall, I have swimming preseason and I'm teaching swimming lessons, and then of course, I'll have swimming all winter long. I might work at the pool in the Spring. So yea. And I might be joining this teamish thing at the pool too, so yea. In addition to that, I joined Pep Band and the Merionite, which is our school's paper. Now, Pep Band is cool since we do nothing (more on that later), but I've realized that I'm a total moron for joining the paper. I mean, I'm not really a very good writer, and I'm one of the biggest procrastinators ever, which doesn't help. Even worse though, I signed up to write an editorial, which was just stupid. I'm like the least creative person ever, so I don't see how I'm going to be able to think of anything. I'm hoping I can just like, get out of writing for this month's issue and do something that involves less thinking next month. But yea.
Anyway, Pep Band. My school doesn't have a marching band because nobody cares enough, so instead, we have the Pep Band, and we're basically a joke. Like, our main objective at every game is to annoy the hell out of everybody at the football games. We don't really have uniforms, and we don't march, so everybody hates us. But I mean, the football team is so bad it doesn't matter. The first game, they lost 28-0. I think our offense gained about -50 yards. Now, that's just a guess, but I'd say it's pretty accurate. Anyway, we didn't go to their first game though, which they lost 40-6. Now, the worst thing about getting blown out like that is that neither of those teams were that great. In fact, the team they lost 28-0 to was supposed to be terrible. So today, we played a pretty good team. Not the best, but they were better than either of the other teams. Yea, well, the score was 40-0 at halftime. The other team scored every time they had the ball until the 4th quarter, when they stopped caring. The final score was 54-0, which was a bit disappointing. I was hoping they'd reach the 80s, but whatever. Anyway, it's hilarious to watch the fooball team suck. It'll be really funny when they face one of the best teams.
So yea. That's pretty much all. |
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| California |
[Sep. 11th, 2006|09:15 pm] |
Well, since I've decided I don't have the work ethic, I'm going to give a very small summary of California.
So yea. We went on a plane (first time in like three billion years for me) to Chicago, and then to San Jose, and stayed the first night there. We didn't do anything there, but we stopped in Stanford on the way to Lake Tahoe. Now, I found Stanford really weird. I'm used to colleges like UVA and UNC, which are all green and lawny, with lots of brick buildings. But like, Stanford was all brown. I don't remember all that much about the buildings, but I remember thinking that they were the same color as the ground. I mean, the place was weird. And then it had these funky palm trees. Crazy stuff.
Anyway, Lake Tahoe/Mammoth Lakes/Yosemite:
Now, first of all, it was really cold. Which was totally weird, since it was like, 90 in Philly. But anyway, we didn't do all that much at Lake Tahoe, and since I'm much more eager to get to the San Francisco part, I'll keep it short. The water was freezing, but I had a good time there, and there was this kickass Italian place we ate at one night.
Yea, anyway, we went to the Mammoth Lakes/Yosemite next, and I thought Yosemite was completely boring. The falls were reasonably cool, but the rest sucked. The Mammoth lakes were cool though. We went to this one place like a billion miles up, and there was this crazy lake. There was actually snow at one part, so yea. But anyway, on to San Francisco.
San Francisco was probably the weirdest city ever. Once again, it was cold, but it was also hilly as hell. I mean, when I heard that San Francisco was hilly, I kinda pictured it as sort of slope-y (definitely a word). It was like, straight up and straight down though. We walked to dinner once, and we had to go like, five blocks uphill, and then once we finished those, there were another five blocks straight downhill until we got to the restaurant. But it was worth it, because the food was good.
Yea, so anyway, we did some okay stuff at the beginning, like Muir Woods and Point Reyes, and like, that was okay. Then we sort of milled around Fisherman's Wharf and saw this amazing street performer (keithshow.com everybody) and this amazing homeless guy. Now, with the homeless guy, we were like, walking along the street and stuff, and not paying too much attention, and next thing I knew, I heard somebody yell like, right next to me. A guy had just jumped out from what had turned out to be a fake bush to scare the crap out of me. So I sort of jumped, extremely freaked out. But I (well, my family too, but whatever) kept walking for a while, but then turned around. Now, basically, this guy was holding up a couple of big branches covered in leaves, and he looked exactly like a bush. Every once in a while, he'd jump out and somebody and scare the crap out of them. Now, the funniest part of this wasn't the actual guy, (although that was pretty funny) it was the crowd assembled across the street. Everybody on the opposite side of the street had stopped to watch. Now, this is like 150 (not exaggerating at all) people just standing there, watching this homeless dude scare the hell out of people walking by, and they were just laughing the entire time. I kinda wondered why these people didn't have anything better to do, but whatever. It was like, the funniest thing ever. Except I know nobody can tell from that description how funny it is.
Yea, so, there were also these crazy seals there, and that was wild. We went to Tiburon, MOMA, (dumbest thing ever, there was a signed urinal at one part) Yerba Buena, Ghirardelli Square, and a lot of other not too exciting places. We met our pastor and his family for dinner one night, so that was pretty cool. Now, the Golden Gate Bridge is totally overrated, but I actually thought the cable cars were pretty cool. So yea. We also went to a Giants game the last night, and they played the Dodgers, so it was totally crazy. The Giants kicked their asses too, so good stuff. That was probably the coldest of all, being right by the bay. But the best thing was definitely Alcatraz. I really can't explain it at all, but ever since going there, I've been completely obsessed with the place. It's really a crazy place.
Yea, so anyway, that's pretty much it. We got home without incident, except for my parents being total morons at security. They had somehow completely missed the whole "no gels" thing, so my mom decided she thought it would be a good idea to take her bag full of three hundred shampoos through anyway, even with me going "check that effing bag" the entire time. So yea, she went and checked it after everybody was all, "yea, you can't do that," but so we go home pretty well.
Final note, we went to this crazy ghost down too, and this really weird place in Nevada (I think) with a restaurant called the Bucket of Blood Saloon. The weirdest thing about California was how it would be green in one place, and then you'd drive like two miles, and there wouldn't be a single tree in sight. It was also surprisingly sparsely populated in areas. And, of course, it was cold. So yea, weird place, but cool vacation. Definitely better than Chicago, (although Minnesota was like, the coolest thing ever) probably better than Montreal/Quebec City too. |
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| Sportsness |
[Sep. 3rd, 2006|05:03 pm] |
Well, I haven't updated in a while, and I haven't said anything about California, and I'm going to get to that next. But for now, sports.
Well, the Phillies are definitely in the Wild Card race, but they could be leading it. After going 60-0 in games leading after 8 innings, they blew back to back games on Thursday and Saturday. They almost choked one today, but they managed to come back, so they still have a chance to be first in the Wild Card at the end of today, with another doubleheader today. They split yesterday's, although they should've won both games. Fortunately, I went to the better of the two. The bullpen has been a disappointment in the past few games, but they've been playing really well, going 20-13 since the trade deadline.
Their starting pitching has actually been really good. Myers was struggling, but has a 2.57 ERA in his last two starts, Lieber has an ERA of 2.42 since the trade dealine, and Hamels has an ERA of 2.43 in that time period. Moyer and Wolf haven't been as good, but the Phillies are 8-2 in their starts. Two of Moyer's starts were quality starts, however, and Wolf (with a record of 3-0; the Phillies are 6-1 in his starts) is clearly showing signs of getting back to form. Since the trade deadline, the starters have an ERA of 4.64, compared to an ERA of 5.57 during the rest of the year. And with the starting rotation pretty clearly set for the rest of the year, I'm feeling confident about the starting pitching for the first time. Oh, and Howard is unbelievable, breaking Schmidt's franchise home run record. The entire offense is, really. They've scored 312 runs since the All-Star Break, the most of any team in the Majors. (The Yankees are second with 285). So if the bullpen can just get back on track, they'll be great. By the way, the bullpen has an ERA of 4.47 since the All-Star Break, it was 3.55 before the All-Star Break.
Well, in other news, the Hoos were slaughtered in their opener against Pitt. Not altogether surprising, but annoying at the same time. I'm guessing their record will be about 6-6, maybe even 5-7 this year, although my dad is more optimistic and thinks they'll win 7 at least. I don't know if 6-6 would qualify for a bowl, since the scheduling's changing this year, but they'll have a hard time getting into one even if 6-6 is enough. Although I think Cedric Peerman and Andrew Pearman will be good, (yea, weird, I know, I hope I got the right first names with the right last names) Michael Johnson is the one with the most experience, and he definitely isn't great. None of them played well against Pitt, so I think that shows that the running game won't do much. Olsen isn't exactly a star quarterback either, so I think the offense'll be horrible in general. Sewell is going to be good in the future, but I don't think he'll start at all. The only TD in the Pitt game came on an interception, which doesn't say much for the offense. I don't think the defense'll be horrible, but it's not good enough to make up for the lack of offense. I'm predicting wins against Western Michigan, Duke, ECU, Maryland, UNC, and NC State. If they can win next week against Wyoming, even better. I don't think they're good enough yet though.
So yea. School starts on Tuesday and the schedules are messed up, so the first day of school will be great. I wish I had another 2 months of summer. |
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| Moyer |
[Aug. 20th, 2006|03:34 pm] |
Well, since the Mariners are a sorry bunch of losers, the Phillies got Jamie Moyer. Which means their starting rotation now looks something like this, in order from best to worst:
Myers
Moyer
Hamels
Lieber
Wolf
Myers is sucking up the place right now, so at the moment, Hamels is actually the best, but this is how it would be. I don't really know where to put Wolf, so I just stuck him there at the end.
Anyway, this means the Phillies actually have a legitimate chance to make the playoffs this year. Their hitting kicks ass and their bullpen's solid, and now that they'll have a decent starting pitcher in every game, they could take the Wild Card.
Interesting how this trade could potentially suck for both the Mariners and the Reds.
Oh, yea, I got back last night. Fell asleep at 6:30 in the morning. It's kinda weird being back. |
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| Phillies |
[Aug. 3rd, 2006|11:44 pm] |
This is all I ever update about, but whatever.
Miraculously, the Phillies have climbed within 2.5 games of the Wild Card. When they traded Bobby and Lidle, I thought they were done. The hitting has been amazing. They're averaging nine runs a game in their past 10 games, or something like that. Chase's hitting streak has now hit 35 games, and their young pitching, Hamels especially, has improved significantly. I'm a little wary about it though, because they really don't deserve to be in the hunt at this point. |
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| Abreu |
[Jul. 31st, 2006|01:37 am] |
Okay, today Bobby got traded. Here's the deal. (Oh yea, sort of a pun)
To Yankees:
RF Bobby Abreu
SP Cory Lidle
To Phillies:
SS CJ Henry
RP Matt Smith
SP/RP Carlos Monasterios
C Jesus Sanchez
I honestly don't know what the hell Gillick was thinking. The Phillies should've been able to trade Bobby for some prospects reasonably close to the major league level. Other than Matt Smith, none of these guys are within 2 years of the Majors, and I don't know if any of them are going to be any good even if they get there. The Phillies should've been able to get a quality starting pitcher prospect for Bobby, plus maybe a couple of lower tier prospects. Now, the Yankees weren't willing to give up Philip Hughes, but I think the Phillies would've been better off with a trade like this.
To Yankees:
RF Bobby Abreu
To Phillies:
SP Steven White
RP Matt Smith
C Jesus Sanchez
White is a guy who's supposed to be solid in the future, and as a starting pitcher relatively close to the Majors, he would've been a good choice. Smith and Sanchez aren't necessarily huge prospects, so that shouldn't be too big of a concern for the Yankees, especially when they're getting a guy like Bobby Abreu. Now, in my opinion, this deal makes sense for the Phillies. They get a starting pitcher who is close to ready, a reliever who is, and a catcher who might turn out. Considering Bobby is a top player, I think this is a pretty good deal for the Yankees. Oh, and it frees up cap space for the Phillies. But, of course, I'm not the General Manager, so it's not up to me.
Now, the actual trade.
What I think about what the Phillies got:
Henry has a good chance to turn out to be pretty good, but right now he's in Class A, so he won't be called up to the Majors next year, and it's highly doubtful the year after that he will be. And even when he comes up, it's not like there's a space for him. I don't see Jimmy going anywhere anytime soon, so I don't know what they'll do then. Matt Smith is the other reasonably good player in this, and he'll probably be a solid relief pitcher. So that's relatively decent. The other two guys don't look like they'll ever amount to much. So they basically got a solid reliever and a project in this deal.
What I think about what the Phillies gave up:
Bobby sort of had to go, his salary was a problem. Lidle, however, did not. The Phillies, believe it or not, are actually still in the playoff chance here, but now that they've gotten rid of their second best starting pitcher, I think it's pretty much hopeless. I just don't understand why they had to include another solid player in this deal, when it seems like Abreu would've been more than enough. So they basically gave in way too early for this year.
I'm pissed about this deal for two reasons. First of all, the Phillies had an opportunity to make this a great trade, and they failed. They cleared some space for some free agent signings, which is good, but they could've gotten some good prospects to help them out next year at the same time. Instead, they got a bunch of guys who aren't going to be able to help them out in a few years, if they ever can. Secondly, they ended any hopes of winning the wild card with this trade. Their pitching is even worse than before, and they've also knocked one of their two clutch hitters out of the lineup. They had at least a slight chance with Wolf coming back, but now that they got rid of Lidle, I don't see it happening.
To end on a couple good notes, Wolf pitched reasonably well today in his first start in over a year, and the Phillies swept a doubleheader against the Marlins. But best of all, Franklin got designated for assignment. It's great that we're finally getting rid of that moron. Not only does he suck, he's a jerk too. Oh, and the Phillies also unloaded David Bell for a worthless prospect, but I'm kinda indifferent about that. |
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| Cousinsness |
[Jul. 29th, 2006|12:46 am] |
Okay, basically, my cousins have been here for the past few days, which means I've had the wonderful experience of watching High School Musical, The Bionicle Movie, and Daddy Daycare. High School Musical was the most messed up movie I've ever seen, but whatever. They leave tomorrow, and then nothing happens for about a week. Next Friday, we go to San Francisco, which is going to be annoying. Cities just suck in general.
Um, I've been playing baseball, and that's been relatively uneventful. I pretty much have one more week of playing organized (sort of) baseball for the rest of my life.
This is pretty much an update about nothing. David Bell got traded for some loser and the Phillies officially suck. I've half started the Grapes of Wrath, although I generally don't go to bed until one in the morning, so I've only read like a chapter every night. It's not exactly the most gripping stuff in the world either, so it's not like I'm tempted to stay awake until 3 reading. I also rented Ender's Shadow and the first book in the Foundation Series, but I've slowed in my readingness significantly. So yea.
Oh, by the way, I'm way too lazy to make a big entry about Montreat. It was basically the same as last year, so if anybody cares, they can go back to that big entry I made last summer. Of course, nobody cares, so it doesn't matter.
That was like, the worst update ever. |
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