Here's a question fo you all...

Currency can be exchanged for goods and services.
Those who print their own currency are classified as counterfeiters and are arrested.
The government prints its own currency.
How is what the government does legal?

Money that has actual, inherent value, and a scarce quantity, makes far more sense than our current system. Besides, I've always wanted to carry around a satchel of gold coins. That would be awesome.

It's the most stressful time of the year

The final five weeks of the regular season are the most difficult to get through when the Mets are actually decent enough to have a chance at the postseason. They just split an important pair of games with the Phillies. I was busy doing other things, so I couldn't watch the games, but my mind was constantly on them. Especially given the magnificent choke-job they pulled out at the end of last season, the end of this season is going to be one of the most stressful I've ever experienced. I think it may even top the end of the '99 season where they made that amazing last minute push to tie the Reds for the wild card slot, going on to beat Cincinnati in that one game playoff.

The Mets start a series tomorrow in Florida against another team trying to hang onto the chance of a postseason birth.

Market forces work

despite what lots of different special interest groups would like you to believe. For years now, Americans have been living in a fantasy world where they have some inherent entitlement to cheap gas. This has led to the prevalence of gas chugging SUVs and a continuous, rapid exodus from city living to suburbia, "The American Dream". This shift was also helped (and possibly begun) by the changing of zoning laws during the mid-late 40's, post-WW2. During the war, zoning laws were put into effect that segregated commercial and residential structures, and this was continuing trend for years. That did a lot to help decentralize our population, and that was one of the most detrimental things to happen to our society.

Today, gas prices are averaging almost $4 a gallon across the country (I can find gas in Hennrietta for $3.59 as of yesterday). This has brought gas prices, and energy in general, to the forefront of American consciousness. Thus, it has become a major topic for our useless sacks of... I mean our politicians. There has also been a huge drive, due to higher energy costs and the onset of global warming consequences, to switch our country to cleaner energy production methods. The solutions we keep hearing about these topics just show how good the federal government has been at manipulating the population to be completely dependent on them. Every solution is some new government tax on company profits, excise tax holidays, cracking down on speculators (as if that's even possible, considering many of them are out of US jurisdiction), tax incentives for green energy, mandating green energy production, and the list keeps going. How about the solution that doesn't involved us collectively chugging from the government's corrupted teet? Let the market do its thing. Yes, people in this country have the quick-fix mentality ingrained in their consciousness, but if you think to the future just a little bit, you'll see that you can actually rely on the market to make corrections for you. Prices are rising? Guess what happens in economics when prices rise? Demand will drop in that market, and will increase in a different market. People will find alternatives. It's a collective pipe-dream that we should all be allowed to drive our behemoth SUVs everywhere without regard to our actions while the government does whatever it needs to do to keep our irresponsible way of life going.

Over the past few years there have been no government mandates taxing profits on oil companies, nor have there been mandates on the auto industry to stop conspiring to keep alternate technology cars off the market, and what has been the result? The market took care of it. GM and Ford, and Toyota with their focus on pickup trucks, have been desperately trying to retool and shift their focus away from gas-guzzlers as demand for SUVs and other large vehicles has plummeted. Americans are drastically shifting their transportation habits. In March we cut 11 billion miles nationally from our total vehicle miles traveled. Car companies can't even come close to pumping out hybrids fast enough to meet demand. Freight companies are mandating their truckers to drop from 70mph to 63mph on highways, increasing their mileage from 4.7 to 5.6 miles per gallon (that comes directly from my uncle, who has been driving trucks for 30 years). Public transportation, which is woefully inadequate in this country, especially in the northeast, is seeing a spike in passengers. Syracuse has started adding more bus routes, and I think Rochester will be doing that soon, too. Couple this with the mortgage crisis and you see a flood of people moving from suburbia back into the cities. This is most prevalent in California where you are now seeing ghost towns where people used to live in their McMansions.

Yes, I completely agree that the energy crisis in this country sucks. But it's a crisis of our own doing. It was brought about by our short-sightedness, our feeling of entitlement, a callous arrogance we have, and an ignorance most of us share about how our actions impact the world. America needs this crisis because it is the only way to shift our culture over to one with a more sustainable way of life. Americans can be tough and resourceful, we just prefer not to be. Well, the world is giving us a wakeup call right now.

Here's hoping for an STI that runs on hydrogen one of these days....

It's sad...

but this man represents Philadelphia sports fans. This is both funny and sad.

Notes on a brewfest

This past Friday was the Flour City Brewfest over at Frontier Field (the baseball field where the Red Wings play). I drove Sean, Angela, and Jeff to it as the... *ahem*... "designated driver". Holy shit, the place had even more people than last year! The counterbalance to that is that they had more breweries there than last year. Let's see, I believe I started the night with a Beamish sample (you get a 2 or 3 ounce sample glass at the door that the breweries will pour your samples into), and it was way uphill from there. There was some weird La Chouffe Tripel IPA that I hadn't remembered hearing of, which was the Houblon Chouffe Dobbelen IPA Tripel and that was quite tasty. Great Lakes Brewing was there, a brewery I really hadn't tried before. I drank their Oktoberfest because Jeff and I were talking about wanting to visit Germany for Oktoberfest one of these days, and I just got in the mood for one. This was very good for the style. I remember it being a bit maltier than I expected, which worked pretty well. A lot of the other stuff I had was stuff that we've all had plenty of, like Ommegang Witte, Victory Hop Devil, Rohrbach's Southwedge Summer Ale, etc.

Two other beers of note must be mentioned. I discovered a new brewery (or re-discovered is probably more accurate), Erie Brewing, out of Erie PA. I had their Railbender Ale which was pretty damn good. I'll have to see if they have some stuff at Beers of the World one of these days. I love finding small breweries in northeast region. The other beer of note was Old Howling Bastard by Blue Point Brewing. Now, I've always been a fan of Blue Point, but this beer was phenomenal. Jeff and I were both blown away by this one. It's their version of a barleywine, and boy did they get it right. I could see aging one of these beers for a few years and having it be magnificent. That was very pleasing.

The rest of the night involved eating and then drinking more at Jeremiah's Tavern in the South Wedge area. A good night all around.

BAM!

So I just won my ebay auction for a copy of Cosmic Encounter. I won it for $157.50 from some guy who says he bought the game way back in the day because he heard it was awesome, but never go around to playing it. He opened it and punched out the cardboard counters, and other than a small dent in the box, it's mint condition and never been played. Sweetness. Now to corrupt some of the Rochester friends with this great game....

Who needs the bullpen....

when Johan Santana pitches a complete game, three-hit shutout? Santana helped the Mets complete a three-game sweep of the Pirates today with a brilliant 113-pitch 4-0 win. No need to call on that shaky bullpen of ours. This puts the Mets at a season-high 12 games over .500 and a 2 1/2 game lead over the Phillies plus or minus half a game depending on who wins the Phillies-Padres game tonight.

Kick'em when they're down

Finally, the Mets are starting to have some consistency against bad teams. Last week, after the bullpen gave up a game they were leading by four in the ninth against the Pirates, the Mets went on to sweep a three-game series in Washington against the Nationals. The final two games in the series were blowouts: 12-0 and 9-3, but the first game was encouraging. Johan Santana started that game and pitched seven solid innings, leaving the game with a tenuous 4-3 lead. Now, the bullpen has blown six leads for Santana this season, so instead of being 16-7, his record is 10-7. This time, Pedro Feliciano was able to nail down the save. The series was encouraging from the standpoint that bullpen needs to show some life. They weren't responsible for any run given up to the Nats.

Currently, the Mets are 2/3 of the way through a series with the Pirates at PNC park in Pittsburgh. Mike Pelfrey pitched extremely well in the first game, and the bullpen held on for the 2-1 victory. The second game was nice because Pedro Martinez pitched seven innings for the first time all season, and he also looks a lot more comfortable than has all season. He allowed one run through seven innings. Unfortunately, this game also showed just how rusty their recent AAA callup, Eddie Kunz, is. He has been tagged as one of the possible replacements for Billy Wagner in the closer's role. Yeah, giving up three in the bottom of the ninth isn't going to cut it. He hadn't pitched in a game since last Sunday, and pitchers really need the repetition of pitching often to maintain a rhythm. They still won the game 7-4, but Kunz made it shaky. He's been a pretty closer for Binghamton and New Orleans, so hopefully he can pick it up a bit, especially since Wagner is feeling pain in his shoulder after the rehab appearances he has been making.

The Mets are now in a five game winning streak and lead the Phillies by 2 games in the division.

Deja vu of the worst kind

Didn't this happen a few weeks ago in Florida?
In Houston a woman drove to work at 6:30am and left at 3:30pm, only to find that her son is inside her truck unconscious. Turns out he had been dead for hours, which is not surprising given how quickly a closed car can heat up to well over 100 degrees in Houston fucking TEXAS! Apparently, "Cameron's mother was supposed to drop off her son at day care around 6am, before heading to work at the hospital, but forgot." Forgive the all-caps here, but HOW THE FUCK DO YOU FORGET TO DROP YOUR CHILD OFF AT DAY CARE?!? This is enraging! How are people so irresponsibly stupid?!?

I'm simply at a loss right now.

Beer me!

So the chest freezer is set up in my kitchen, and tonight I added lines and cobra taps to the chilled kegs. I am currently drinking a pint of my amber that I brewed many months ago (sometime back in the winter). Mmmm. This beer has really done well with the aging, though it lost a bit of the hop bite. It was really meant to have more hop flavor than bitterness anyway, and the flavor has been preserved quite nicely. This is delicious.

Roll of the dice

This season, the story for the Mets has been that of a rollercoaster ride after their starting pitcher leaves the game. The performance of the bullpen has been so erratic, there really is no way to be comfortable with any lead these days. Now with Billy Wagner injured, they are trying desperately to find someone to fill in the closer's role. The first choice was obviously to try using Aaron Heilman, as he's been a pretty solid setup man for the Mets for a while. Well, after blowing a two-run lead to the lowly Pirates on Monday, Jerry Manuel decided, rightly, to switch to using Pedro Feliciano. Feliciano has been one of the few consistent pitchers in that bullpen this year. He's had his down periods, as any pitcher will have, but they've been quickly corrected. I've been waiting for them to use Eddie Kunz, a young pitcher that has lots of experience closing games in college and in AA Binghamton, but Manuel keeps saying he doesn't want to throw his young guys into the fire so quickly. Well, he's starting to change his tune now that the bullpen is looking like it's going to kill the Mets' season once again. There's also talk of converting John Maine from a starter to a close, which is something I think he would be well suited for given the high velocity of his pitches and the good movement he has on his fastball. The only problem with that is the lack of depth they already have in the starting rotation, meaning that move would make the team weaker overall.

Call me cynical, but I really am already looking at what next season will bring. It's going to be a very interesting offseason given how many members of the team will be at the end of their contracts. I just hope Minaya doesn't continue his trend of signing aging and injury-prone veterans.

Wish I had a camera at the time....

A bunch of us went out to the Distillery on Mount Hope Ave tonight to celebrate Danielle's birthday. When I left and went to my car, I saw that the car next to mine looked kind of odd. Turns out someone wrapped that car in plastic wrap. Now, it's not nearly as impressive as the prank Jay Mutford pulled on one of his friends when he actually shrink-wrapped someone's entire car, as this was just someone wrapping the plastic around the car. Still, it was hilariously amusing.

As a side note, there is a beer festival at Frontier Field this Friday night. It was a lot of fun last year, especially when Angela decided to go 'sample for sample' with me. Man, she was wasted and I was good to drive. Silly girl. Should be good times once again!

Sonic The Hedgehog is a gentle creature

Game called due to... torrential downpour

The Rochester Red Wings game that Meredith and I were going to tonight wound up being right in the middle of a big storm front that is still producing heavy rain and major lightning. We went to the game for a bit hoping that the rain would let up and they would play ball, but when it became evident that nothing was changing, we headed over to the Old Toad for some beers and dinner. I just got back from dropping her off at her hotel, and I have to say that the lightning that is flashing all over the place tonight is very impressive. Some of the bolts are actually causing everything around me to be almost as bright as a sunny afternoon. We wanted to see baseball, but that'll have to wait. The beer was good, though.

Need a vacation from my free time

I spent this past weekend in Ithaca helping my parents put in new cabinets in the kitchen. The kitchen was gutted and there was an addition put on the house from the kitchen outward. That put me away from Rochester for yet another weekend this summer. All this traveling is starting to take a serious toll on me, and I really just need to start sleeping well again. I'll be doing a Benadryl reset on body tonight (2 Benadryls before bed to knock me the fuck out). Granted, 2 Benadryls don't typically knock me out all that effectively, but I don't want to go overboard tonight and risk sleeping through the alarm. I'll be able to stay in town this weekend (and drink with Swilly, woot!), but I have to go back the weekend after to Ithaca to put the tiles in the kitchen and the hardwood in the addition. I think I'm slapping a moratorium on travel for a couple weeks after that just so I can recoup some sleep and finally get out to explore Fairport a bit more for once.

Tomorrow night will be fun, though, as Meredith will be in town on business and we'll be hitting up a Rochester Red Wings game at Frontier Field. Hurray for triple-A baseball, instead of the rookie ball Valley Cats. :p Michael Cuddyer will be on the roster, as he's rehabbing from an injury. He's an infielder the Twins have used the past few years, but he's injured most of this year.

Rochester traffic: good for a laugh

I am routinely amazed at how messed up people in Rochester can be. Today I was driving home from work around noon-ish, and had to stop at a light in the city before hitting 490. The car in front of me had a license plate border that had me wishing I had a camera in my phone. The top part of the border said "21 & Single", while the bottom said "Holla At Me". I had to seriously restrain myself from bursting out laughing. I don't even know what to make of it; is the guy really desperate, or is he a douchebag? Either way, it was both hilarious and sad.