1/30/13

Softball: Blowouts (Musings on the Varied Strains of Humility and Rout)

Dear People,

My team crushed Chris Fure's into tiny metaphorical bits of utterly degraded corn cud, 23-8, and I'm not saying that just because I'm willing to sacrifice a little semantic coherence for some gratuitous alliteration. Or maybe I am, but the fact is that if I had been on Chris' team, I would've been feeling distressed and jejune, for I would've been ensconced in perhaps the most ferocious roster of bat-wielding firepower that this community has ever seen-among others, Greg Laddish and Steve Powers on the same murderer's row! And yet I would've still been part of a floundering ship which lain tragically prostrate under the Furinator's feckless leadership. Of course we all know that managerial disgrace is numerically relative, and thus after reading Monday's Daily Cal, I suspect that even Chris could bask in the reputational relief of not having been part of Stanford's somewhat troubled program in competitive college rugby…

http://www.dailycal.org/2013/01/27/176-0-cal-slaughters-stanford/

Now look, we all know that 176-0 is a fairly unsightly outcome, but even those pitiful Stanfurd losers could go home with a certain sense of conceptually strained accomplishment. Indeed, the reality is that they still had more statistical dignity than Alf Landon, who lost to FDR in the storied 1936 Electoral Bowl, 523-8.

The point is that disappointment can pop up in all kinds of ways, and I mention that because I'm now five shameless months into El Rostro de la Venganza. Yes, every daily episode of this transformative Latino soap brings me further into its intriguing web of lust, deceit, murder and additional lust, and if you must know, I'm more convinced then ever that it was actually the charming but jealous Valeria who ordered Mariana killed! In any case, the point is that with help from Spanish-language captioning for the deaf, I thought my comprehension was relentlessly climbing, and that in fact I was now getting 75% of what was being said. Curiously though, Telemundo inexplicably dropped the captions from last night's show, and so in a somewhat dispiriting pedagogical revelation, I realized that my true level of understanding is perhaps an admittedly more problematic 1-2%.

Regardless, I plan to shake off this obliteration of my ego and simply persevere, and not just because any true amigos would always be willing to simultaneously write down whatever they happen to be saying to me. Oh sure, I may never be able to “pass for Nicaraguan” or be “comprehensible” whenever I partake in that gorgeous tongue, but I can hold my head high and move on, knowing that like the great Chris Fure, I will likely never coach a team that loses 176-0. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond


2/1/13

Softball: Way Before the Niners

Dear People,

There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still six slots left. Of course I'd rather not have to troll for players tomorrow, so I'd like to just gently remind those of you on the fence that we will be finishing up several hours before the start of the stupid Super Sheol.

This week's field fee is just $4, and that includes a complimentary one year subscription to the UCLA Journal of the Infinite, Quantum Entanglement and other Compelling Abstractions for the Recreational Stoner….Raymond 845-7552

PS: Big History Rocks!…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrqqD_Tsy4Q

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