As If It Matters

Kottke draws our attention to an amazing little site called the Line Rider. Really quite clever. You’ve got to try it to understand it. Lately I’ve been wondering about how our vocabulary is limited - or has limited itself - around words like “game” and “play”. Is Line Rider a game? You’ve got to try Line Rider. But after you try it, you must, MUST, watch this YouTube video. It’s astonishing what Line Rider is capable of - more videos here.

I have been thinking a lot about marriage lately (surprise, surprise). A poem I read this morning was delightful:

I Married You

I married you
for all the wrong reasons,
charmed by your
dangerous family history,
by the innocent muscles, bulging
like hidden weapons
under your shirt,
by your naive ties, the colors
of painted scraps of sunset.
I was charmed too
by your assumptions
about me: my serenity—
that mirror waiting to be cracked,
my flashy acrobatics with knives
in the kitchen.
How wrong we both were
about each other,
and how happy we have been.

by Linda Pastan
from Queen of a Rainy Country

The November issue of Wired magazine has a very cool feature called “Very Short Stories“: “Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words (”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”) and is said to have called it his best work.” and so they asked 33 different science fiction writers to take a try. My favorites:

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. - Joss Whedon

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time - Alan Moore

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly. - Orson Scott Card

I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss…? - Neil Gaiman

Kirby had never eaten toes before. - Kevin Smith

And I decided to take a try myself during a mercilessly long meeting:

Prompted, robot parrot repeats Bishop’s password.

Jupiter bumps into moon, worlds collide.

Chalice found here. Metallic beast snarls.

It was fun. I may have to write some more.

Many thanks to my brother, Pete, for covering the Mets post-season on this blog. His writing is excellent. If you missed his posts, you should catch them in the Mets archive, as they are amazin’. Of course, if you’re not a Mets fan… read them anyway. You should be a Mets fan. Fellow Mets fan Sona and I had conspired to procure Mets World Series tickets. Last night she sent me the photo of the ticket, and said “If we can’t enjoy the game, at least we can hold onto the dream…” There will always be next year.

p.s. I’ve added the author to the post template, so now you know who wrote what!

it’ll be OK folks. This is how it goes, this glorious game of baseball. Dust off your pants, give your loved ones a hug and start dreaming about next year.

It was a sloppy series on both sides, but it was still fun to watch and the fun part is what you should focus on. Cause there will always be more fun. More fun in November and December, doing normal things. And then a whole bunch of more fun come the spring.

So lets shake this one off, get back to our lives, and watch Detroit stomp all over those bastards. Detroit in 4.

Watch the faces of the Cardinals- do you know what they’re feelin’? It ain’t a good oomph!

In 14 hours we’ll know. We will know if these Mets, The Mets, OUR Mets were granted some devine mandate to repay some of those heart wrenching seasons.
So don’t just make this some ordinary day! You gotta feel it in your omph if you want these guys to win. I feel it. You feel it?

Lets GO METS

What did I tell you! It’s sweeter tonight, isn’t it? Lets see hwo sweet it can be tomorrow!

I think it’s the complete and totally lack of good sleep, but I am giddy! I am bouncy as bumblebee. I feel like shouting “We’re Suck! We’re the worst team in baseball, but right now, We’re the best!” My apologies to Trippi if I messed that up but come on! We have lost a few ugly games in this series. Reallyy ugly. And a few we did win have been a little ugly too.

But lets not be negative! It was a glorious game! Maine grew up a lot tonight (never mind that he was dipping…. I can only guess Cherry Skoal). And we had important hits from guys who needed to get them! Green got a solid RBI, Reyes was amazing and LoDuca was a big part of this win. Lets just hope that this one recharged the Mets’ boyish zeal.

Come on my friends! We can do this! Sure our pitching isn’t great (Billy Wagner, you owe me a new pair of shorts), but we can do this! We suck! But right now, and all of next week, We are the best team in baseball! I believe it.

Lets Go METS!

I’m sorry for the inside jokes and brevity of this post, but I’m zonked. You shouldn’t have to get up for work after all these night playoff games. Next year… Yeah NEXT year, when we do this all again, I’m taking October off. Lets Go Mets!

Hi- I’m Nicco’s brother, who has been invited to guest blog about baseball. I should probably spend the extra 2 seconds to just copy and paste Nicco’s standard intro here, but I’m hopeing that by shaking things up a bit the Mets can rally in the 9th inning. - little brother

If you are like me, somewhere in the 7th inning you thought about not going to work tomorrow. You said to yourself, I just don’t see how I can get thru the day. There is no point in moving these weary bones if the Mets, our METS, loose game 5 to the Cards you said to yourself. But then you realize, that that hurt will still be there after a day wasted. That hurt will only grow if you allow yourself to nurture it.

This is where your BELIEVE comes into play. Yes, it is awful to see Los Mets flounder. It’s awful to see Tommy Glavine not look like the man of steel he was in previous games. But that’s how it’s gonna be sometimes. The Mets will loose games. The Mets will loose games they shouldn’t. But you can’t despair, you can’t call for Duncan to be tested for illegal substances, you can’t curse that ever mobile strike zone. Yes, it is Fan nature to do these things, but despairing and looking for scapegoats and loopholes, isn’t worth it.

If the Mets cruised over the Cards, I daresay we would all take one step closer to that dreaded wasteland of Yankee Fandom. We would feel like our team was entitled to the succor that we didn’t earn. We have to endure the hardships and losses because without them, we aren’t fans. I look at my daughter almost every day and just know she is gonna really get my goat when she’s older. I’m sure we’re gonna have a hell of a time when she’s older, arguing about this and that. But it makes her adorable moments now (and the ones to come) just that much sweeter, because I know I can love her thru the harder times.

So come on Mets fans! Shoulder your responsibility and relish your team! Yes, Shawn Green “the power hitter” can’t get a fly ball (I mean hit one or catch one), Yes our team can hit 12 runs in one game and 0 and 2 in the games before and after. That’s part of who we are. So come along and enjoy it! At worst, the Mets don’t make it to the world series, you have missed a few good TV shows and seen some dumb Verizon and Berger King ads too often. At the best, our Mets pull this off in 7, and you can say, I’ve always loved them, and I’ve always believed!

Ps. Is it just me or does being a Mets fan sound a little like being a Puritan…. Yes yes relish the pain now for the rewards will come another time… unless you go to hell. My apologies, I’m reading a book set in early Boston and it’s tainting my life.

this has been comedy with a porpoise.

I asked my brother, Pete Mele, to provide Mets post-season commentary on Nicco.org. Enjoy! – NM

Congratulations! We believed! We prayed! We hoped for Oliver Perez and we came thru! But it wasn’t that exciting. When you’re up by 7 runs, you don’t sweat a Jim Edmonds home run. I admit for the first time in a week, I was able to carry a conversation with my wife during the 6th inning. And what she said was spot on. As Delgado came up for the 3rd or 4th time, she said, “I love it when you can see boyhood excitement in an adult face.” And I think thats such a perfect summary of the Mets at their best.

Obviously Wright and Reyes are more or less still boys and you can see that in their pro jerseys, they are really just 2 steps from 7 year olds living out a fantasy. But Delgado, a 14 year veteran, still has that fire. He’s come thru some good years, a few bad years, a few bad managers, a press smear scandal, and while he’s grissled when it comes to the ins and outs of this wonderful diversion, he can still apreciate the ‘game’ on the diamond. His ‘omph’ is all smiles. And I love watching him play. Here’s to 2 more wins and a trip to the World Series! Lets Go METS! Lets Keep Believing!

I am slightly worried about the future. Tomorrow will be a hard game. Lets hope our boys in blue and orange will keep the pep in their steps and the smile in their eyes. I’m worried about fatigue and stress on our only tried and true starter. And then we still have a game 6 if not 7 to worry about. And while we’re busting our humps against the cards, the Tigers are wiping champaign out of their eyes and dusting off their ring fingers.

And it doesn’t help that the Fox sports network is patently anti-Met. Joe Buck is a longtime Cards broadcaster and Tim Carver? Oh right, he was the Cards’ catcher for 10 years. So that’s a “fair and balanced” look at the Metropolitans. Did anyone notice that when they did the “This Day In History”m the clip of the Mets clinching the NLCS in 86 was actually a clip of the Astros hitting a off the foul poul into fair territory, then a smash cut the the Mets pitcher, Jesse Orasco pumping his fist. Right. Couldn’t of shown Strawberry knocking his double….

I heard Willie Randolph talking on the Radio today, and while i thought he didn’t have enough BELIEVE in this voice, I do like the way he closed the interview. He said, We’ve got 9. LEts go out and get ‘em. Well right now we’ve actually got 3 games. Lets go out there and get them. Lets get them good. Lets Go Mets!