Clinch Time...AGAIN!

So...this is the thing.

Since I went to the game on Wednesday, the Tigers haven't won. (Yeah, and there's no video done...sorry.) That changes today.

All the Tigers have to do is win tonight, and we win the AL Central...one of the toughest divisions in baseball. So, let's make this one count!!!

Can't wait to celebrate.

Oh. And MSU sucks again.

Off To See The Tigers...The Wonderful Tigers of Detroit

Watch for a photo/video post here within the next few days. It's gonna be sweet.

Just for the record, I have a bad feeling about tonight's game. Robertson's been good in his last few starts, but there hasn't been that much run support for him...I'm always nervous when he pitches that the guys just don't feel like hitting.

Not only that, but I don't see why the Yankees or Twins should lose tonight - they're both playing moderately substandard teams.

I'll be finished with my Rumplestiltskin story in a few days, but I don't think I'll be posting it here, since I'm sending it out for publication...it'll be the first story I've done that with. I'm excited about that, not only because I feel like it might actually have a really good chance to get picked up, but because I have a really cool story to start right after it...something that, if I do it right, will be amazingly good.

Adam Animated

The Death Catch

Neil Gaiman's friend John M. Ford just died. He was a writer, apparently an extremely talented one. A man many respected, and admired, for his work in the field. His death is evidently a tragic event for those who have been touched by his prose (and poetry).

This is strange, but I am a little envious of Mr. Ford. Not because I want to die or anything (I don't. Not yet.) but because of the way those who knew him are going out of their way to honor his life and his works, to recount how his stories affected them. When I die, I like to think people will do the same thing for me, and not just say "Yeah, well. Finally." I want to be remembered after I die as someone who had potential and used it, but who hadn't used it all up. Someone who could have, if he'd lived long enough, written his masterpiece and changed the world. I like that view, because I don't know if I'd ever actually write a masterpiece...so it's nice to think that people would believe I would have after I'm dead. It's a Catch 22, since I want it but I'll never get to enjoy it.

It's time to start doing what I'm going to be remembered for. You might argue that I've been doing it already, and you might be right. Small scale. I've been writing, that's true. But not working at it, not really. I've been writing and hoping for some kind of miracle, a miracle that will make my attempts at novel-writing into something masterful, something publishable. This just isn't possible.

No more shortcuts.

Writing every day. Brainstorming. Plotting. Writing every day.

Finishing things.

Phobia...

To A Tigers Game...

On Wednesday, I'm going to see the Tigers take on the Blue Jays at Comerica...it'll be the first game I've been to at the new stadium, and the first time I've seen the Tigers in person since...well, like five or six years.

My Dad's taking me - I feel like a little kid again!

I don't know who's pitching, but I'm excited anyway...I'm pretty much in the middle of left field, on the lower level. Sweet - watch for a post with photos about the game.

Illustration Friday: Farm

A Day of Games

I'm watching the Lions on television at the moment - I didn't even recognize them! They've got these really nouveau black, blue and silver (jerseys/outfits/get-ups - what do we call them?) that make them look like a different team altogether. And I guess they're playing like another team altogether as well...

The Tigers play the Twins for the fourth game in the series today. They won the first game (a la the last five series' we've lost - the last time we've won two games in a row was vs. the White Sox.) and lost the second two. If we lose today, you can pretty much kiss the playoffs goodbye.

I'm really not kidding.

It's time to kick things into gear.

The Leg Squirrel

I had a squirrel crawl up my leg already today. That's how eventful my days are. I mean, it's not even noon yet!

Anyway, so I'm walking toward these two squirrels, right? As I get closer, one of them runs the other way. The other one runs too. Toward me. And up my leg. This thing was about seven pounds...and not really that cute up close. It didn't climb up and eat my brains or anything though. It stopped at the knee, held on for a minute looking at me, and then let go. I didn't have my camera.

It's a sad state of affairs when something cool happens and a person's first reaction is "I need to blog that!"

Also, I just learned that Survivor: Cook Islands is going to be a segregated race...race. That's horrible. They're taking all the white people, all the African Americans, the Asian Americans, and the Hispanic Americans, and they're splitting them into four tribes. Like that's not some producer's (Burnett) secret plan to televise one race's superiority over another to millions of people. So I'm not watching it. I'll watch Lost, instead. When it starts up in October.

Diminishing Marginal Utility

So, it seems that the novelty factor involved in everything runs out eventually. The more you see of something, the less you pine for it. Like, for example. Chocolate. If you have a ton of chocolate that you eat all the time, you're going to start hating it. You may even never want to see it ever again. Release it from your daily regimen, as it were.

Kind of like Dmitri Young and the Tigers. (Yeah, he got released after Wednesday's loss. Boo hoo.)

Back to my point. The more pizza you have, the less value one particular piece of pizza has. This is called diminishing marginal utility, and it's a term most high school students learn in Econ. The more money you have, the less value a dollar has. Or a million dollars. Or a billion (if your last name is Gates).

This is true for everything. The more time you spend on a particular project, the more other projects become more appealing to you than what you're currently working on. The more blog posts you do, the less value you see in actually putting the time in to do another one. The more classes you attend, the more tempting it becomes to miss just one...if it means you can sleep just another hour or so.

There's like three exceptions to this rule. One is sleep. Another is showering. And a third rhymes with Ibby.

And onto the second point of the day. Philosophy. It's a class I'm in right now. We're discussing free will (almost - we didn't quite get to it.)

One of the questions on the board was: In what case does determinism (the idea that everything we do is predetermined) actually have merit?* And you know, it shouldn't. Why should we care whether everything we do is predetermined, as long as it's what we believe we want to do at the time? As long as it's not some "hand of fate" forcing us to, say, shoot a baby. And, in some way, I can see that our lives are predetermined. The way a hand in poker is predetermined, but still somehow seems immediately dynamic.

Because let's say that we take this moment. You're reading these words. This moment, as it stands, is the only possible outcome of billions of years of causes and effects. All those years, and this is the moment they created (barring the idea that each moment, an infinite amount of alternate universes based off this one are created, and a moment after that and infinite amount of alternate universes is created based off of each of the infinite previously created alternate universes...a causal chain that makes this moment just one possible outcome of many.)

Therefore, the moment a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, from now will be the same. The only possible outcome of billions of years of causes and effects. And if there's only one possible outcome (x, since we don't know what it is - perhaps nothing knows what it is, but it's a constant.) then our future is really predetermined. Our lives can only end one way. Each event in our lives can only end one way.

That's pretty cool. I thought of that myself, but I'm sure hundreds of other people have thought it as well, and have written it down, and therefore my thinking of it and writing it down was unproductive and repetitious.

*(The answer I came up with for the question, was, by the way "During Time Travel, when the Traveller visits himself in the future and then returns to his own present. Is he determined to become exactly the man he has visited?")

The Idea Thing

Ideas are stupid.

Not mine, in particular, but the whole idea of ideas.

They can come from anywhere - everywhere. Which means a lot of them really, really suck.

And if you write them all down, and they all suck, what do you have? A lot of really really sucky ideas. Well, sure, they seemed cool when you started with them, but then today you're a different person than you were yesterday. So they suck today. They might be good tomorrow. So don't delete them.

All I'm saying is that...it's possible to not have any ideas. And it's possible to have too many good ideas. And it's possible that all the ideas you'll ever have really, really suck. So maybe all I'm asking for is to catch a few once in a while. A few good ones.

Then I'll write those down. But I won't use them. Since they're too good and I'd ruin them.

I know. This isn't a very good post, especially for people getting this in the e-mail. Sorry. But Neil posted something so I have to, too. Sorry again.

Too Much Or Not Enough

No, I'm not comforted by the fact that the Spartans won today. For some reason I don't really care about my own school's team today. And I don't think I will. My heart's really in only one team right now, in one sport right now. How am I doing? It's day to day.

You see, whether I'm happy or not has to do with the Tigers winning or not.

When they win, nothing in the world is wrong. Point out all the people dying, and I won't be exactly happy about it, but hey. The Tigers won.

Then there's a day like today.

A day where I wake up and go to work, spend three hours alone being badgered by the occasional "customer in a hurry," tell my boss that yeah, I'll work Christmas (even though it's the busiest time of the year for shipping - go figure.)and don't get out until forty minutes after closing because some girl decides to come in five minutes before I lock the door so she can ship four packages and not be late for her hair/nail appointment. Wonder if she'd been in such a hurry to send them out right then if she'd known that none of her packages are even leaving our store until Tuesday at 5:30. I certainly knew it.

But hey. At least I was getting paid for those extra forty minutes.

And hey. At least the Tigers were on later, and they were probably going to win.

Of course, this was a different kind of day. A day where, on my way home, the motor in my driver's side window emitted a large popping noise and refused to work anymore. My window is permanently down now, pending repair. The implications of this are many - no driving in rain, or cold. No leaving my car anywhere where rain may fall onto it. No leaving it anywhere at all until the window is fixed or the homeless will find refuge in it, take things from it, or leave things in it. Repair? Who's going to do that? It's Sunday now. Tomorrow's Labor Day.

But hey, I thought. At least the Tigers might win. And if they win, then even my headache won't seem so bad anymore.

So the Tigers won. 2-1. Verlander pitched 7 amazing shutout innings, following Rogers' lead after his gem yesterday. It was topped by a Marcus Thames single in the bottom of the eighth, which put us a run over the Angels. Todd Jones came on. Two up, two down. The game was in the bag.
I turned off my computer.

Of course Todd Jones got that final out. I didn't have to see it to believe it. Todd Jones is Todd Jones. He's the Mariano Rivera of the Tigers (albeit a little portly).

With that win, it was a good day. All those bad things, and the Tigers win made them all ok. So I settled down with Libby and her family to watch Benchwarmers, that one where Rob Schneider actually plays a normal character (weird.) It's a baseball flick, and I liked it ok. Because the Tigers won.

Then my mom calls me. You know the Tigers lost, right? That's what she says to me. I know they lost, right? I'm like. Yeah. Sure. Good one. Yeah, she says. 7 to 2. I laugh out loud. No way, I say. No way that's even the same game. We lost to them earlier this year and the score of that game was 7 to 2. We won this one, Mom. 2 to 1. Promise.

She sounds pretty sure though. So I look online, right? And I swear, I probably started crying. Because she's right, and the worst day I've had in a long time becomes even worse.

What's wrong with me? Why is this team so important to me this year? Why do I care so much? I really don't want to. I wish I didn't. They're going to break my heart. If they can't do it this year, they're going to break my heart.

How can a baseball team do that?

How?