Royals Recall Bannister

Did I mention that he moonwalked across the stage at Fan Fest?  Banny's awesome.  You know...as a person.  Here's hoping he's got his stuff together so that he is back to being awesome as a #5 starter as well.  

Love you Banny!  

I snagged this from someone else's lj and now I've forgotten who.  My apologies!  

 Apparently “The Big Read” assumes that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
Wow, really?
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Today was the first of three days I've been looking forward to this January:

• Day One of Royals FanFest (today!)
• Day Two of Royals FanFest (tomorrow!)
• Inauguration Day (thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou for being less than 3 days away!)

As usual, Hubby and I overslept and so didn't get there until after noon.  What can I say?  The new queen bed is really comfortable.  Pretty much we just wandered from booth to booth, unwilling to wait in the lines (which really weren't that long) to participate in any of the activities - mostly because participating in the activities would have involved embarrassing ourselves in front of large groups of people.  If no one were looking, though, I would have loved to do the Speed Pitch Challenge and the batting cage.  It had actually cleared out a lot by the time we were ready to leave at 5:30, but by then we were tired and worried that the puppy dog at home might have gotten ambitious in trying to reach the roast we had cooking in the crock pot.  (He didn't!  What an unusually good boy!  But geez louise he was hyped up when we got home and kept licking the air, especially while we each helped ourselves to a bowl of the yummy-but-slightly-overcooked roast.)

I think FanFest is one of the smartest things the Royals have done in recent years.  It's inexpensive.  It's fun.  It's kid-friendly.  We fans get a lot of access to the players and coaches - current and former.  

Today we did a photo session with Brian Bannister, Ron Mahay and Devon Lowery.  Banny is one of my favorite players, which is why we did this, and also the lines for the photo sessions are really short, especially compared with the autograph lines.  There was a couple ahead of us who had a pretty new looking baby that they had the players hold for pictures.  It was very VERY VERY cute.  There was also a sweet little girl -  maybe 3 or 4 - with a little blue bow in her black wavy hair.  And then us - in our 30s, getting our pictures taken with baseball players.  

We enjoyed walking around the various booths - Negro Leagues history, MLB history, Royals history, Hall of Fame memorabilia display, the Zoo brought a turtle and a hedgehog you could pet! - and getting swag.  Mostly schedules and keychains and a sticker or two.  Between each of the "main stage" events the Royals KC Crew would come out and throw t-shirts, baseball-looking hacky sacks, Royals blankets and other free logo-emblazoned items out into the crowd and so we got one of the baseball-looking hacky sacks.  We probably could have got more stuff if my catching technique involved jumping up and grabbing instead of flinching and ducking, but there you go.  Hubby caught the ball - obviously.  

We sat in on two of the mainstage sessions - the Broadcasters roundtable and the Outfielders Q&A.  We love our broadcasters.  Denny Matthews is deservedly in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Broadcaster's wing and Ryan Lefebvre just cracks me up.  And unlike the players, they're all pretty good at actually talking into their microphones and keeping a story going, so that was entertaining.  The Outfielders were actually pretty funny, too.  They mostly talked into their mikes and seemed to be having fun with each other.  Representing the outfield were David DeJesus, Shane Costa, and new-to-the-Royals Cocoa Crisp!  

I was glad to see Cocoa Crisp having fun connecting with the KC fans and just seeming happy to be here.  It's pretty rare that we trade for a player that I've actually heard of, so this was exciting for me.  And he was great - laughing and joking with DeJesus (a.k.a. "mmmm-yummy") and Costa and talking about winning (what a novel idea!).  Actually, both he and DeJesus talked about winning, which is a total relief.  Our dreams have gone from "please-let's-not-lose-100-games-this-year" to "let's-try-to-win-the-division-this-year."  Sure, it might be a bit optimistic, but I can stand that.  I can go for a little optimism.  A little bit of someone expecting to be part of a winning team instead of being utterly complacent with terrible.  It's freakin' great!

Looking forward to tomorrow!  
But not half as much as I'm looking forward to Tuesday.  Blessed, blessed Inauguration Day!

It seems they've already started the debate about whether or not they should make "Breaking Dawn" into a movie.  LA Times comes down on the side of "no" but I come down on the side of "yes" for a couple of reasons.  

First, to dispute the Times main reason of the source material being too long and weird - hey, they can just cut all that out.  It's not like they can make a word-for-word adaptation anyway - it would be longer than North and South (all 3 parts).  They can condense a lot.  A LOT.  And I think it would be better for it.  As much as I liked Breaking Dawn, I also found some things frustrating - mainly that stuff I didn't care so much about went on forever while stuff I did care about went unexplored.  Here's the chance to fix that!  

Another reason they listed is that they thought it would be hard to bring that movie to bear with a PG-13.  To which I say, so what if it's an R?  It's a couple years away, so most of the younger fans will be old enough by then anyway.  And really, they could do it PG-13 if they wanted to.  It helps that it's a "moral" tale, so the MPAA will be more lenient.  They don't have to show everything - a little gore goes a long way.  Despite all the years of Alien movies, what is it that everyone remembers best?  The quick little take of the baby bursting out of John Hurt.  Use your gore right and you can get a PG-13 and still get the desired result.  In fact, the less you use the graphic stuff, the more impactful those moments will be - and really we're only talking about the birthing scene anyway.  

Edit out most of Jacob's - by which I mean, forget that Book 2 is from his point of view.  We don't need all that stuff about the pack and all.  He's still an important part of the story, but there is not near enough there to fill out a full movie in my opinion.  It'd be like Star Wars 1 - which I think most of us would agree (and Lucas later admitted) was mostly filler.  In fact, I believe I read in Entertainment Weekly that Lucas said of the back story he had in his mind 60% was put into Episode 3 and the other 40% was spread across Episodes 1 & 2, and you know, as a filmgoer, didn't it feel that way?  Remember those guys who edited down 1 to a 30 minute movie?  Yeah - that's how  a 2-part film of Breaking Dawn would be.  (And yeah - I'm still bitter about Star Wars.)

So basically, we need the wedding, we need the honeymoon (because of the plot machinations and the foreshadowing with the cleaning lady), we need like 15-20 minutes of pregnancy (because isn't that part all redundant anyway?  We just need to get everyone's worry, Rosalie's aliance, the tension within the wolves and we're into the insane birthing scene, which I actually love).  Then 20-30 minutes of Bella adjusting to Vampire life and the last third of the movie is preparing for and engaging in the face-off with the Volturi (with some face time for Kate and Garret, because they're awesome).  

I think Breaking Dawn could be redeemed by a movie, frankly, and that's coming from someone who actually liked it.  

I just want to be sure we get the scene where Edward first hears the baby, because that's the most awesome thing ever.  

Okay, and here's a final thought.  If Summit gets the rights to Breaking Dawn, they actually combine the first parts of Breaking Dawn into Eclipse so that the wedding and honeymoon happen at the end of Eclipse the movie and we cliff hang on Bella being pregnant (although I'm open to whether they know it yet or if just us the audience knows it).  

A (totally random and incomplete) list of what I'm thankful for this year:

• must always start with my loving, smart, loyal, obnoxious family.  This year I'm especially thankful for my grandma, whose health is deteriorating rapidly, but who always seems to be ready to laugh at herself (and us) even when what she's laughing about is the fact that she's driving us all nuts because she has absolutely no short term memory after the series of "mini-strokes" she had last year.  
• my husband - we celebrated our 2nd anniversary this year!  I love being married, and I'm very grateful that even though I'm a real pissy bitch sometimes (although sometimes I do think it's deserved) he always just rolls his eyes and moves on and doesn't hold it against me.
• our new house!  Well, really it's 65 years old, but it's new to us, and we love it and love that it's ours.
• our Henry-dog and Margo-cat.  They're the bestest sweetest most entertaining snuggily-wumpkins in the whole wide world.
• our health.  Hubby had a very bad cholesterol result during his exam this year, so we are now on an improved food-eating habit-building thingy.  And it's been so easy and we've both lost weight.  We'll have to wait a few months to see if it's improved his cholesterol.
• our health insurance!  Which (finally) paid off my appendectomy from last year, much to our relief.  I think I was starting to get an ulcer over the continued "reviews" but it finally all turned out okay in the end.  
• our jobs.  Sadly, we've had some layoffs at work - in the grand scheme it was a small percentage, but I'm very thankful that neither hubby and I were among them, as it was out level of staffing that was affected.  We hope that our jobs continue to be secure in 2009.  
• my latest movie-star crush: Rob Pattinson!  And my latest book obsession: Twilight Saga!  Not the greatest thing ever, but since when has that been a criteria for my obsessions?  And it is holding me over between Harry Potter ending and the relaunch of Star Trek next year.  And Rob gives freakin' hilarious interviews.  I especially like the ones with Rachelle Lefevre, because she is so well spoken, and he's usually being flaky, and yet they are both very engaged and actually making an effort.  
• and last but not least - I am thrilled and hopeful and excited and joyful that the next president of the United States is Barack Obama!  I am counting down to January and the glorious day when he will be elected.  I don't think I ever really believed that I would see a person of color as president in my lifetime.  And I find him personally inspiring on top of how much his election "means" to the country.  Back in February during our caucus here in Kansas when I was trying to decide who to vote for, I ultimately went with him because when I hear him, when I see him, when I imagine him as the leader of our government and our representative to the world, I feel proud to be an American in a way I haven't in a long time.  I majored in American Studies in college, and I loved it everyday because of all the potential we have, and it's been so long since I've felt like that potential was a real possibility.  But now I feel like everything that can be good about our country has been reawakened and possibilities exist again instead of our goodness being taking for granted and used for malicious purposes .  
• I'm less thankful that I found my first gray hair, but what you gonna do?  

Okay...just got home from seeing Twilight. It's 2:44am. I'm tired, even though I rarely go to bed much before this anyway, especially on my day off. Here are some of my initial reactions:

• The movie was neither as bad as I'd feared or as good as I'd hoped.  There were some moments that were really freakin' cool and then there were some really awkward moments.  
• I'm reminded of the fact that the first book was actually my least favorite of the four - the "declaring our love" scenes just make me cringe, although there are moments I really liked.  But really after reading the first book, I probably would not necessarily have reached for the second if I didn't work at a bookstore and wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  (Loved New Moon, Eclipse and many things about Breaking Dawn.)  For the most part, what I liked and disliked about the books translated to what I liked and disliked about the movie.  Awkward awkward awkward embarrassing scenes of teenage love declaring themselves.  Awkward.  Which is exactly how I felt originally reading it.  It was incredibly embarrassing reading it when I was alone at home, but witnessing it with a crowd of several hundred others was cringe-worthy.  Can't wait for the other movies so that we can just enjoy them figuring out their relationship with each other and their relationship as a couple with the rest of the world instead of this very awkward (did I mention VERY awkward) moments of declaring their undying young love!  
• I really like Kristen Stewart and Billy Burke's scenes together.  They were both exactly as I'd pictured the characters and when they were together they shared a perfect chemistry of awkward but loving and respectful father and daughter.  
• Edward seems to be getting ready for his suicide in the next one.  I liked him best when he was smiling, which was unfortunately not very often.  I also liked him playing off Jessica for some reason.  Maybe her perky pettiness breaking through his moroseness and forcing a moment of amusement out of him...I don't know.  
• I loved the vampire baseball scene!  Freaking awesome!
• Several things that I was worried seemed off or wrong in the previews we'd seen online actually worked well in the movie - Jackson Rathbone as Jasper (intense and unsure of himself around Bella, but sure of his place among the Cullens), the whole Bella meeting the family (which to me seemed potentially awful in the rough clips we'd seen on line actually worked really well for me in the final cut of it).  
• Not enough Cullens!  But hopefully we'll see more in the deleted scenes on DVD.  
• I'm probably gonna see it again.  

Glad that it's finally out!  Maybe now I can go back to having a life and let go of my obsession just a little bit.  Yeah for freedom!  

So recently my dad's coffee group was discussing the Electoral College and he was in the minority that was arguing that it should *not* be abolished. So when he got home he e-mailed and asked for my help in better formulating his arguments. I didn't ever realize that I had a strong opinion about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I decided I really like the Electoral College - with two caveats. Let me get those out of the way first and then I will give the reasons I like the Electoral College.

Improvements I'd like to see:
1-I think there should be better accountability, higher standards and more resources devoted to insuring that elections are run fairly, and especially that the person who is supposed to be in charge of making sure the election is executed fairly is not a high ranking member in a particular candidate's campaign for that state (Yeah - I'm looking at you Katherine Harris.)
2-I would like to see more states adopt Nebraska & Maine's practice of splitting the electoral votes by congressional district with the state's overall winner getting the 2 statewide seats.

Why I like the Electoral College:
1-Most importantly, I think it's important to remember that the Federal government's authority comes from the states. "United States of America" isn't just a name, but also describes our nation's basic governmental form. The Constitution was only adopted once the required number of state's ratified it and can only be changed when the required number of states agree to that change. There are a million examples, so I won't go into them, but basically, it seems right to me that the Federal government that gets its authority from the states should also have its leader chosen by the states.
2-It's more practical. I know our founders were men of great ideas - but they were also incredibly practical. And here's the ugly truth - can you imagine a recount in an election where over 110 million people vote? If there were a less than 1% difference, that would practically require a recount, and less than 1% difference is still over a million votes. That's a freakin' nightmare. And it would invite all kinds of corruption because it would be so unwieldy.
3-I'm not normally a state's rights kind of person, but I do think that my community has the right to vote how it wants while another area has the right to vote how it wants. If the president were elected directly by the people, I think that would require a national standard in how votes are cast. This past election included mail-in ballots only (in Oregon, I think I read), voting day-only in person (like in neighboring Missouri) or two weeks of in-person, no-reason-needed early voting (like here in Kansas). Each community chose the way it felt was best for its citizens based on varied criteria. Each has pros and cons. But each still has the right to do what it feels is right for itself as long as it meets federal election guidelines.
4-I'm also not a big "let's change the Constitution 'cause I like my idea" kind of person. I think the Constitution should be changed when it is morally necessary (like, oh, for instance, originally counting slaves as only 3/5's of a person) or when there is a need for greater clarity or fixing a mistake (like better defining succession if a president is incapacitated or killed or making it so that the runner-up in an election is not made the vice-president of his/her bitter rival). There are only 27 amendments to the Constitution. The first ten of those were actually part of the original ratification of the Constitution (can I hear an "amen" for the Bill of Rights?). One of the later amendments exists to strike down an earlier amendment that was passed with much emotion and little thought to practice (I'm looking at you Prohibition) - which to me is the best argument that the Constitution should be amended only rarely and with much deliberation.
5-And finally, I think the Electoral College is a great instrument in keeping down the "tyranny of the majority" - one of my favorite concepts that Madison and Hamilton (and Jay) discuss in the Federalist Papers arguing for the ratification of the Constitution. There are many parts of the Constitution that are designed to protect the minority from just being harassed and exploited by the majority (and it's amazing how well it works when actually enforced!). Overriding a veto requires a 2/3's majority, not simply 51 votes. The Bill of Rights protects the rights of individuals from being denied by the more powerful. And the Electoral College prevents presidential candidates from winning by only campaigning in major cities with large populations. They have to run everywhere, and because of that those of us who live in smaller cities (or rural areas) get the ear of the person who will soon be the most powerful person in the country (and among the most powerful people in the world). It forces the candidates to speak to and listen to all their citizens.

Voting Day is one of my favoritest days of all. And I got to do it today! We have early voting here in Kansas, and I was a little reluctant to vote early, even though my work schedule/sleep habits are such that Tuesdays aren't the most convenient days for errands (not that I would ever let that stop me). I just love Voting Day - the waiting in line, the sticker, knowing that the whole country (or at least the voting portion) is united in purpose on one day. I think it's magical. WE THE PEOPLE get to decide who will be our leader/representative in government. WE THE PEOPLE approve or disapprove laws. WE THE PEOPLE decide the fate of our country.

Granted, I'm often very disappointed come Voting Day night, but Voting Day morning is all about hope and possibilities. And frankly, even when I'm disappointed with the outcome, I love that I'm standing in line next to someone I probably disagree with, and yet there is no violence or intimidation or other mean, icky things. Even during the 2000 election - which left me disappointed and furious on many levels - I still marveled at the fact that even in a highly disputed election, our government did not crumble and power passed peacefully from one group to another. And even though during the last 8 years I have been disappointed and furious with our government from time to time, I took comfort in the fact that it would eventually end and maybe then *my* side would get its turn.

I am stupid excited that this may be true. I can't convey how thrilled I was to cast my ballot for Barack Obama today. I wanted to dance right there at the "booth." My husband is lovingly tolerant and at least let me high-five him as we walked out. I just needed to release some of my adrenaline. I practically started crying on the way home because I think it's really going to happen. I'm still trying not to get my hopes up too much because while I love our electoral process, I don't trust it with my heart. But every day as we get closer to Tuesday, my heart is getting closer to gone.

Luckily I work many shifts between now and Tuesday, so that will help keep me grounded. And please oh please oh please America! Let's actually vote for the future come Tuesday! I'm counting on you!

Meet my dog Henry. Tonight, just after dinner and not long before bedtime we let him out in the backyard for his post-dinner pee. I'm not really sure what it was he rolled in, but we smelled it before we saw it, and my normally white & tan dog had most of the right side of his neck, one shoulder and his back covered in something brown and mucky - and did I mention STINKY! My husband quickly ushered him into the bathtub and starting spraying him down and Henry bore it well, with a very sad sad look on his face.

Is there anything worse than working hard to achieve your goal only to have those you love and trust most undermine you as soon as you think you've achieved it? Henry would say no.

I would say he's sleeping downstairs tonight - just in case we missed some of the stink.

Rock Star! (As if there was a wrong answer to that question.)