Boo Hiatuses

Iono how many times I've fallen in love with Utada Hikaru (many), and with her impending hiatus I wonder how many more times I will, but this right here is definitely one of those times.

IWAKUMA

WHAAAT?! That is quite unexpected. Honestly, I really don't like it. I mean, the fact that the A's will probably sign a high profile Japanese ball player is really exciting, I'm kind of ecstatic. But I don't like Iwakuma much as a MLB pitcher. Injuries have robbed him of velocity and his strikeout rates in NPB are far from impressive. His walk rates are great, but shit so were Daisuke's before he came over, an Daisuke has the stuff to get away with a little wildness, Iwakuma it doesn't appear to have that kind of leeway. Mostly I'm worried about how he adjusts to the MLB ball, cause it seems like everyone commin from NPB ditches their splitter when they come over, an as a low velocity groundball guy, I'm gettin the feeling the split is prbly a important part of Iwakuma's arsenal.

What I really want to know is how K/uBB rates translate from NPB to MLB. Obviously MLB has better hitters, but it does seem like a lot of Japanese players that come over have above average contact abilities, of course, that could just be because they are the better overall hitters in Japan. It'd be really cool if Iwakuma could be like our very own Hiroku Kuroda or somthin, but I doubt that'll happen. What is a reasonable comparable hope then? I'm going with Carl Pavano. I'm hopin for a Japanese Pavano. Someone who won't put runners on an will keep the ball on the ground/in the park. Hopefully with a few more strikeouts sprinkled in too. Thing about the A's though, they do their homework, so they must see a lot they really like in Iwakuma to spend this kind of money on him. Plus, lookin at the other free agent starter options, may as well gamble on Iwakuma. Be interesting to see what other moves are made now, we do have quite a bit of starting pitching.

Giants

First an foremost, Tim Lincecum is fucking awesome. Holy crap that was fun. Started the postseason unbelievably good, an ended it in dominant fashion. Was kind of miffed he didn't get MVP, but it was kind of amusing that a shitty player like renteria got it. I think my favorite part of the whole playoff run though, aside from watching Timmy destroy his foes, was reading McCovey Chronicles. That Grant is some kinda strange form of genius. It was a fun ride, an it's nice to finally see a championship for the Bay Area. Still, couldn't help but be a small bit jealous. Even though I've come to adopt the Giants as my #2 team, my NL team if you will, I really can't get excited about them the way I do about the A's. But it gives hope. Our rotation is comparable. No, Anderson isn't Lincecum, but he has a shot at being close to it, an I like Braden/Gio/Cahill as comparable in quality to Cain/Sanchez/MadBum. All we need now is some fluke years from offensive players. Also, if we could find a Buster Posey somewhere thatd be really awesome.

SHIT

I just realized. I want the Giants to go to the series. Shit, I even want them to win it now. They a hella fun team to root for, plus they are a Bay Area team after all. But I also want them to lose just one more game. Why? Joe Fucking Blanton. MadBum is cool, his nickname cracks me up endlessly, but sorry giants, Joe Blanton is gonna shit all over you. Hopefully Timmy wins epic pitching matchup round 2 an the giants score enough for one of cain or sanchez to take the series.

Anticipation

I haven't been this excited/scared for a baseball game since the last time A's made the playoffs. Zito vs. Santanna anyone? God I was ball of nerves that day. Boy do I hope Timmy kills em today. Don't even really care if Doc throws another perfect game, I want Lincecum to make fools of that philly lineup.

updaaate

Haven't posted in ages. So what's happened? Giants advanced! Holy crap Timmy is amazing. When Doc threw his no-hitter, I wrote about half a post here about how I was convinced he was the best pitcher in baseball. I didn't post it. I was in awe of Halladay, but I also couldn't wait to see how Timmy handled the excitement of the playoffs. Holy shit did he respond. Count me as back in the Lincecum corner, the kid just does shit that is simply unreal.

Back to that school thing. Don't go to one class, Japanese I'm doin horrible an my teacher keeps pokin fun at me, but in phonology i'm number 2 in the class! So I guess I'm 1-3 so far.

I ate at a 2 star Michelin restaurant last week. cost me 77 dollars. I supose thats cheap for a fancy pants place like that, food was def not 77 dollars good tho. i mean, it was good, but didnt blow my mind or anything.

cant really think of much else. been neglecting this poor log, mostly cause the A's were boring in that last month. gotta remember to post more.

RASMUS

WHAT! THIS WOULD BE WAY TOO PERFECT. Rasmus is like, legit legit legit CF youngster with all-star, hell, even hall of fame talent. Can I dream that we find some way to trade for him? Cause that would like, solve our blackhole of an outfield.

Chinese Grade

I got an A. In my summer chinese intensive. That is 15 units of 4.0. un-fucking-believable. I thought I may have an outside shot at a A-/B+, but more likely a B, or B- if I was unlucky. Must have done really well on my last test and presentation. Holy shit this does wonder for my GPA tho. back up to 3.4 and some change. No excuses now, have to work my ass off this year. I actually have a shot at honors. un-fucking-believable.

Draft!

Holy crap we are bad. Pit us against a half decent team and we shrivel up. BUT! Crap we had a nice draft! Choice is lookin good in vancouver. Yordy Cabrera is, well, not my favorite. Lots of people seem to love him, including lots of scouts, but fact is hes a high school kid who will be 20 soon. Until I see some numbers, I will remain unimpressed. It'll be really interesting to see where he starts the season though, I'm gonna guess AFL...interesting to see when he goes into full season ball next year. Kind of has to right, given the age? Iono. Love the Shipman and Lewis picks for some reason. Or rather, I like Shipman, sounds like a really promising talent. All these young high school bats, they all interesting shiny new toys, gotta wait though to see if theyll perform, gotta be careful to not judge em immediately too given how young and far from the majors they are. After that not too much. Vail is not exciting, Thompson, while interesting, I'm kinda doubting at this point will amount to much. Matt Thomson though. Holy crap lets talk Matthew Thomson. Dude is annihilating Vancouver. Apparently he was a reliever in college? Goddamn, good on the A's for thinkin he can start, cause holy shit can the kid start. Sickles didnt even give him a mention in his draft review of the A's, I can't really find anything about him. Be cool if he could get a bump to kane county, pitcher friendly park too boot so you kinda figure he'd take to it well. Must not rush tho...so hard to not get excited about new prospects.

Anderson v. Felix

Well shit. That was a damn fun game to watch. Anderson was great, Felix was just greater. Too bad we lost. But seriously we had no chance against Felix tonight, was just one of those nights where a lineup like ours was not gonna pose any threat. Anderson was pretty crazy too though. Granted, the Mariner offense is a bigger pile of shit than ours, but still one unintentional walk bunch of K's and a shit ton of groundballs, can't really ask for more. I mean, dude was hitting 95 on the stadium gun and his slider was as deadly as it was last year, this is the Anderson we want for the next 6 or whatever years, this is a very dominant pitcher. Exciting stuff. Less exciting: Carter, holy crap, Carter is scaring me with his whiff-at-any-slider-seen act. Only two games though, not gonna freak out yet. I am of the opinion it is too early for him to be here, but the difference between now and next month is not anything I'm going to get worked up about. Farm system has been doing better of late. You know, with the ball club playin slightly above .500 ball and the minor league guys managing to salvage horrid starts, this is startin to shape up as the best season we've seen in a good few years.

Fucking Pirates!

What a nuts trade deadline. Fucking Neal Huntington man. He fucking hosed the NL West. Like, seriously, he pretty much said, "im gonna go fuck over the NL west" and then did it. I mean look at this bull shit:

To NL West: DJ Carrasco, Bobby Fucking Crosby, Ryan Church, Javier Lopez, Octavio Dotel

To Pirates: Chris Snyder, Joe Martinez, John Bowker, James McDonald, Andrew Lambo

No fucking fair, why won't anyone do trades like this with us anymore. I mean look at that, they gave away a boring reliever, a horrendous infielder, a useless outfielder, a pretty bad reliever, and a pretty decent reliever, all for a good cheap catcher, a young and cheap relief arm, an intriguing corner of/1b bat, an awesome arm who was wasting away on a stupid team, and a high upside outfielder young for his age at AA. Fuck you NL west, way to be a bunch of fucking idiots. It'll take time, but the Pirates are gonna be a pretty good team. They keep acquiring talent, and their depth keeps getting more impressive. They lack stars at the moment, but if a few of those prospects pan out they can go all Rays on the league sooner than we may think.

GARZA!

No hitter! I love me some Matt Garza, got to be my favorite non-A...non joe blanton division. No idea why i love joe blanton so much. But Garza! Such a joy to watch that guy. Never stops spitting...even after the game is over. An his stuff is just insane. Velocity for days, hammer curve, disgusting slider. I really can't understand how he doesn't K more people, his stuff is just silly. Happy he got the no hitter though, if anyone could its him. Just cause on any particular day his stuff has that truly unhittable potential. An today it was! wooo!

Dan Haren Traded to Angels?!

Fuck the dbacks. Fuck em. Fuck em fuck em fuck em fuck em fuck em. Theres no fucking way this trade makes sense for them, no matter what universe you live in. People this incompetent at their job deserve to be publicly humiliated and executed. And then they can go burn in hell for the rest of eternity and they STILL would not be forgiven for being so goddamn fucking stupid. We basically got a whole fucking baseball team for dan haren a few years ago. The dbacks managed to get in return 3 turds and a ptbnl who ISNT mike trout. just, wtf. the ptbnl is really meaningless, unless it were trout this trade is a disaster. Conger is shit and will most likely not catch, bourjos cant hit, and never mind now i check again it turns out the player is skaggs. Skaggs at least doesnt suck, but hes a high upside a-ball arm. THIS IS DAN FUCKING HAREN. on a team friendly contract! incredibly team friendly! wtf wtf wtf. if it were skaggs + bourjos id be still angry, but at least a little bit less. dbacks have got to be considered now one of the stupidest teams in the league. can u imagine how good they could be if they had never bothered to acquire haren? its disgusting really, theyd have carlos gonzalez in center, with cuningham fighting chris young for the spot in left. chris carter at first, brett anderson atop the rotation, and eveland/smith are prbly released by now...but honestly arizona cant pitch for shit so they may be useful for that team. fuck the dbacks. just when it looks like angels are finally on their way to irrelevance, they get a fucking ace pitcher gift wrapped to their door. first the m's got lee for free, then the angels got haren for free...next year it had better be our turn. im talkin grienke for raj davis or some stupid shit like that. cause this is just ridiculous.

Young Arms

Remember that golden rotation we had at Stockton two years ago? The one that featured somethin like Cahill, Anderson, Rodriguez, De Los Santos, annnnd someone, Mazzaro maybe? I've been kind of depressed this year about how shitty our prospects have been this year, but when it comes to the return we are getting from these five guys that are/were the top arms in our system, its pretty damn uplifting.

Everyone knows pitching prospects are risky. They get hurt, they flame out, they never find their command, whatever. Those five guys were five very highly touted arms, and it is looking like we are going to get production from all five, which would be an astounding success. Anderson is looking like a superstar. Cahill is looking like a solid mid rotation guy with upside for more. Mazzaro is showing signs of being Cahill-ish with a lower ceiling. Rodriguez is throwing 100 mph fastballs at the red sox as I type this. An FDLS, despite goin through tommy john, is dominating AA as a reliever. Our pitching is already pretty good, and it should only get better. In a year or two theres a potential for us the be Rays deep in our pitching staff, and with the upside that guys like Anderson, Cahill, an even Gio hold, theres a potential for our guys to be even better.

Can't Study

Can't seem to focus. Not good either, got a group presentation tomorrow. But oh well, in a burnt out mood. I don't link to much stuff on this blog, so I think I'm due for a link dumpish kinda post.

Crazy entertaining game. Lincecum was crap, Giants somehow clawed back, Broxton loaded the bases and then Mattingly, unaware of the one trip to mound per inning rule, turns back to have another word with Broxton, forcing Broxton out of the game. This game had everything, hit batters, ejections, bizarre scenarios, dramatic comeback.

If this is true, I probably have a new favorite Warrior. I watched a few summer league games and Lin impressed me. He always looked to push the ball up the floor or attack the basket when he gained possession of the ball, just couldnt help but think how nicely he would fit in with the warriors system. Defense didn't seem particularly horrible either, well, he showed effort at least.

Randomly came across this mashup. It almost sounds like emo boa, which sounds like a horrendous situation, but this mix is really workin for me for some reason.

Spent a shit ton of money on video games yesterday. There's actually some pretty decent deals in there, an I used that 20from80 code to get a further 20 bucks off...yea that already gives you an idea on how much I spent. Totally worth it though, I'm gonna have way too many games to play when I get home.

Joe hooked me up with a little writing situation on some startup baseball site. Haven't written anything yet, seems kind of interesting though, I'll be writing I guess weekly ~200 word game summaries/previews for the dodgers. I suppose the concept could be useful for casual fans who have too much money or something. Honestly, I can see how a subscription could be fun, even for a baseball obsessed fan like myself, but I couldn't see myself spending money on it. But then again, I am a poor college student who is always searching for more baseball knowledge, so I guess that's why I'm writing and not buying.

Henry Rodriguez! Kid deserves an extended look in the bigs, where he actually pitches too. He's been crazy good at sac and he throws fucking TRIPLE DIGITS.

Grumpy Computer

just blue screened on me. It does this every few months it seems. For pretty much no reason! I do the same thing: have a heart attack, hold down power button to make scary screen go away, hide face in hands for about 10 minutes, then turn back on and realize nothing is out of the ordinary. I really dislike my computer, it really went to shit fast. No, it hasn't actually died on me, but between the nonexistent "battery" and fucking grinding noise, it has pretty much been the most immobile laptop ever. And it annoys the shit out of me. Also, its slow as fuck, but that prbly could be fixed if ucla didnt make me install all this useless security shit. o but one of the video cards did crash. so that is pretty weak. I bought left 4 dead 2 a while ago for super cheap, was kinda excited but my computer cant run it. Video card is just...pathetic. It had to be the high end one that crashed too, couldnt be the shitty one for power saving. O well, gonna try to ride this guy out til the end of summer, actively lookin for a replacement.

Stream Torrent

Holy crap. Stream Torrent is dangerously easy to use. I remember the only reason I stopped watching streams of games was because tvants was impossible to fix. You had a million problems with every new stream you opened. This is a breeze though, basically just click the link and it opens. hurraaaay a's games! hurraaaay incomming shitty grades!

WAT THE POWER

I LOVE SCOTT KAZMIR

also, lolcliff lee, complete game loss, 3 homers allowed. hurraaaaaay texas, he is so gonna miss safeco by the end of the year. hell, i bet he misses it now.

Lee

M's did well for themselves. Really well actually. 1st base was a pretty huge problem for that organization, and they seem to have filled it nicely. Smoak will probably be solid, a kind of switch hitting Barton if you ask me, probably more power eventually but with a few more strikeouts. I've said it many times, I think the M's roster is absolute shit, so this is the kind of move that I can get behind; stud youngster and some semi-interesting prospects for a player that was toiling away on their crap team. Really, I didn't see a need for the rangers to make this move, yea they are now a legitimately good team now, but I don't think their chances of losing the division were that high before. It pretty much is assured they will make the playoffs now though, so I guess that is worth something. On a completely different note, holy shit miami heat. who cares if they play with a million rookies, that team is unfair.

Gio

Am I the only person who is really scared of Gio's season? He hasn't taken any steps forward. He's walking a tad less, but also striking out a proportionate less amount. And that said, he still leads the AL in walks! His walk/K raito is worse than last year. The only reason FIP likes him is his hr/fb% is at 7%...which yea, is impossible, this is GIO for fucks sake, its gonna regress to 10%+ and his ERA/FIP with it. His year has been, well not horrendous, but its been bad, a step backwards. What made Gio awesome was his ability to miss bats. Yea, he missed the strikezone too, but that missing of everything was a net positive. This year he isn't missing bats, well, like he used to at least, his overrall contact rate is way up. Like, across the board, in the zone, out the zone, hitters are simply gettin the bat to the ball quite a bit more often. I haven't watched any games. None, I haven't been home, I don know what the hell is up, but it worries me. For a guy who's always been a big strikeout guy, including at the major league level, this lack of K's is starting to cause quite a bit of concern.

SABEAN WTF

When I saw that Bengie had been traded for Chris Ray, my first thought was, "makes sense, crap for crap." Wait no that's a lie, my first thought was, "wtf? bengie got traded? unexpected. apparently even sabean has his limits." but then i saw that the ptbnl is fuckin mike main. WTF! did Sabean just swindle someone?! i think he did! i mean, not only did he manage to dump bengie to get posey time behind the plate, he got a shitty relief arm AND a stud prospect! I've always been kind of afraid of main, seein as how he seemed to be a guy with pretty good stuff and was highly touted in a rangers system that had a crap load of pitching talent. im impressed, to say the least, best move ive ever seen sabean make, i think.

Ynoa Watch 2

Well not as good as the first time. 3 walks is not fun, but 4 strikeouts! I sure do like the strikeouts, hopefully this means his stuff is goodish. Heh 2 wild pitches to go with the walks, think its safe to say he didnt have the best of control today. Barton was awesome today, extra base hits are so rare for this team, nice to see three from one guy. Cahill, holy crap Cahill is turnin into a absolute beast. 10 K's! His pitches seem to have great movement, nice to see people finally missing them. Small realization: Cahill might be our all-star. 7-2 W-L and a 2.88 ERA. Obviously he isn't as good as his...what would you call em...conventional/useless stats suggest, but I think it'd be cool if he's our all-star. I mean, no one else on the team is really deserving. Well maybe Suzuki but you kind of have to squint to make his argument. Anyway ya I'd like Cahill in the all-star game, give the kid some confidence, let him brag about something before Brett Anderson comes back and reminds him how mortal he is compared to his godly teammate.

Exciting news I guess?

Sooo what happened today. We got someone for Fox. A pitcher. Ross Wolf. I know nothing about him. O god his stats are bad. I hope he's a huge groundball guy. Like, crazy groundball rate, cause he strikes no one out. Limits walks at least. Eh, at least we got somethin for Fox. Patterson got dfa'd. Sad. I still think he can be useful, not on this team I guess. Hope someone takes a stab at him, the whole no defensive position thing makes it pretty difficult for him though. Ynoa finally debuted. 4 K's 0 BB's, fucking awesome. Also got two groundball outs versus just one air out...how the last two outs were recorded are anyones guess I suppose. Maybe he has a godly pickoff move and nabbed both baserunners he allowed. Hey I can fantasize can't I? No pitchcount recorded. Wish there was a report on how hard he was throwing. Alright I checked the log, one of the outs was a lineout and the other was a caught stealing. I guess lineouts aren't air outs in boxscores. Booo two of his strikeouts were looking. Eh, still counts I guess. I'm more excited about this than I thought I would be, I almost never check rookie league box scores, let alone the game logs. Maybe Ynoa will go all strasburg on everyone and debut this september and strike out 15 just to show up that other phenom. it...could happen...well I do hope he stays healthy at the very least.

Really need to do well

Hah I just realized I'm still a junior. I don't meet the unit limit to be considered a senior. If I pass this intensive I will. My GPA is like, 3.3 and change, I really need a A in this intensive if I'm going to grad school. Me thinks it's finally time to drag myself out of all the damn holes I've dug for myself.

Mandarin Impression

Well, I've found out how to rekindle my interest in Japanese language. Study Mandarin. God Fuckin Damn is this shit weird. Japanese has like, what, one, maybe two, sounds that differ from english? Mandarin is all over the map. And tones! holy shit tones! My TA was ragging on Japanese, saying its so damn hard cause of the verb forms and formality aspects. Fuck that, Japanese is straight, 5 vowels, no variants, systematic consonants, no tone. I can't make a rising tone to save my life...it's only day one...it should get easier right?

Porcello and Cahill again

Anyone else feel like Rick Porcello was horrendously mishandled? I remember I kinda speculated on this last year. It looked like him an Cahill were in the same boat, barely surviving at the big league level. They both only threw their fastballs and ditched their lauded curves for crappy sliders, so yea, neither had any k's. The difference was Porcello could find the strike zone, Cahill could not.

Then there's this season. Cahill was sent to AAA to start He has pretty much scrapped the shitty slider and refound his curveball. He's startin to strike guys out, walk a few less, and his groundballs are going up. Porcello, on the other hand, has nearly turned into Cahill of last year. What makes me so optimistic about Cahill is that he has a record of outstanding success in the low minors. Crazy k%, gb%, not bad bb%. So while it was pretty fucking irresponsible of the A's to let Cahill get murdered all season last year, they at least sent him back to the minors and rethink his approach, get back to what made him a beast.

Porcello, however, never really had any excuse to be in a big league rotation other than glowing scouting reports. He never struck anybody out in the minors. I remember everyone said it was because the tigers weren't letting him throw his curveball. If that is the case, why the fuck was Porcello jumped to the majors without ever getting any experience with his breaking ball against pro hitters? I'm not saying I saw this season coming, Porcello was surprisingly passable last season, but his development path just makes so little sense that it isn't all that surprising that he has collapsed this year. I feel a little bad for him, but mostly I'm just glad it's him that collapsed and not Cahill. I complain a ton about the bad breaks the A's receive, but Cahill is really looking like a lucky one for once.

Takin Stock

So I passed my two classes last quarter. Sadly, that was not expected. B in Japanese, which pisses me off. My grades were way better than a B average, teacher just hated me cause I never went to class, probably lost a whole grade because she chose to weigh attendance/participation so heavily. Phonetics I managed a C+ somehow. Don't know how. Really. I barely went to class. I didn't attend a single discussion section, and they were supposedly critical to success in the class. My grades on tests/homework were...well...horrendous. Not complaining though, with this out of the way I can focus my attention on Mandarin. If I can somehow pass this summer intensive (hopefully a good grade, going into this really positive and focused), I'll be right in line to graduate next year, may even have enough flexibility to add a minor. Mandarin seems a beast though. There's 20(!) books for the course. I have no fucking clue why, I bought four today, I'll get the rest as the course goes on. Saw the first assignment posted too. 36 pages. Hopefully that's a weeks worth...if that is one day I'm dead.

Connor Jackson!

I really like this move. Like, more than I thought I would by a minor move like this. I've always liked Connor Jackson as a player. Has some power, walks a fair bit, doesn't strike out much, plays average-ish defense in a corner. He's a useful player, and a candidate for a fluke awesome year if only because he's in his prime and puts the ball in play a ton. Will he push us into the playoffs this year? Probably not, that fate pretty much rests on the shoulders of our savior, Brett Anderson, and I don't think thats going to happen this year. But we get to see what Jackson is made of this year, and hopefully he's a healthy part of our domination plan for next year. If Taylor continues to suck, Jackson probably will not be a bad player. If Taylor turns out to be awesome again, we flip Jackson in the offseason/next year or keep him around as a fantastic, albeit expensive, bench guy. We got a potentially very useful corner bat on a team that has almost no offense. And we gave up a decent minor league relief arm for it. I mean I couldn't have drawn this up any better, bought way low on a guy who is likely to rebound, gave up a piece that we have about 3 billion other equivalent/better options than. I love it, fantastic start to the hotstove season.

Strasburg

WTF. I managed to watch his 4th inning where he got into trouble. Had some issues with his command that inning, still though, his stuff is insane. I'm not sure insane really captures how fucking talented this guy is. The fastball is just...well...god its not fair. Upper 90's with movement! Fucking sharp movement! Not to mention triple digits when he feels like it. And then the curve, everyone was saying it was a plus pitch but holy shit it looked better than that to me. Remember when Kerry Wood was fucking awesome and threw that curve that looked like a fuckin 80 mph frisby? That's what Strasburg's curve reminds me of, just unworldy/unnatural movement. And if that weren't enough his changeup. Fucking high 80's-low 90's with, wait for it, disgusting movement. I am just blown away by the guy. Health permitting, he will be the best pitcher in mlb, and I'm not sure it will be particularly close. And not just down the line, shit he may not win the cy young this year but I wouldn't be surprised if he proves to be amongst the best from june on in the NL.

Choice

I don't know much about Michael Choice. I didn't really follow the draft all that closely this year. From what I could tell though was that the way things happened, we had about 3 billion options at 10. And we took Choice. He seems like the kind of guy the A's would love. Lots of power, quite a bit of upside, college bat, and walks a TON. I'm pretty satisfied with the pick, really. The way the big league team goes up and hacks away, nice to see a guy enter the system who has a rep of walking often.

The one guy that really kind of intrigued me in this draft was Yasmani Grandal. Well, obviously harper and taillon intrigued me too, but I never thought we would get a shot at them. Grandal actually did fall to us, but we passed, presumably because of signability. I wouldn't be too surprised if the A's had Choice higher on they board though. Well, obviously they did, what I mean is I wouldn't be surprised if, just on talent alone, the A's had Choice higher than Grandal, just because of his awesome power potential and crazy patience. Reds ended up with Grandal. They got the guy I was really hoping would fall to the A's last year too in Leake. Mike Leake, btw, is fucking awesome. I thought people were under selling him as the safe but near mlb ready college pick. Turns out it wasn't under selling, he really was that mlb ready/safe of a pick. And more importantly, not only is he mlb ready, hes like an above average pitcher.

Anyway, excited to see how the rest of the draft turns out. Hopefully Choice will not be a tough sign so we can see some stassi/krol-esque signings in the coming rounds. Because seriously, our farm system is performing so miserably, those two are about the only two I'm optimistic about now. Krol has been awesome, and Stassi, despite the K's, is flashing some crazy power for a teenager in A ball. Hope we can get Choice signed quick, I'd really like to see what he can do. Gosh I love the draft, acquiring new talent is always way too much fun.

Oh Giants

Buster Posey debuted yesterday. He had a fairly productive day, playing first base. I suppose I don't mind that much that he isn't catching at the moment, I mean, his bat probably is better than anyone not named Sandoval on that team, and bengie isnt terrible. Well, for now at least. But bengie wasnt playing yesterday, fucking whiteside was. Youre really going to start whiteside over Buster fucking Posey? The whole excuse for keeping him down was to work on his receiving, why the hell would you not play him at catcher on bengies off day. At least it wasn't the stupidest occurrence yesterday. That would belong to kendry morales. holy crap was that funny. I mean, yea, score some bad karma points to me for laughing at a guy for breaking his leg, but when an angel hurts himself during a celebration, i'm going to laugh.

Hanging Around

Around the .500 mark that is. Pretty much what I expected out of this team. BUT! But, the difference is that this team has been absolutely raped by injuries. I mean arguably our best position player and best pitcher have already missed time. Still have a free agent signing that hasn't seen any playing time. Ellis has missed time. I could keep going but we all know the injury luck we've had. And yet we are still managing an even record. When Anderson comes back we should be right back in the mix for first. And if the young pitchers can improve a bit as the year progresses (is that way too much to ask?) this team could get really really exciting really really fast. I hope the whole Ross in the rotation thing works out, I'm really optimistic about this guy, mostly because he's a local guy.

PERFECT

Never in a million years did I think this could happen. I mean come, it's Dallas Braden. Craft lefty with a mid 80's fastball. And it's the Rays! One of the better offenses in baseball. I only wish I could have seen it on something other than gameday. You know between the hilarious interviews, the "get off my fucking mound!" hysteria, and now a perfect game, I'm pretty sure Dallas Braden is like the most entertaining A I've ever witnessed. Dude is pure awesome.

So roster moves...

Donaldson/Cahill up, Suzuki to the DL, Carson down to AAA. Wait, Carson was on the roster? Missed that. I was miffed yesterday with the donaldson call up, but I guess I don't care now. Our season has basically already been fucked by injuries, may as well try an catch a random spark from a young player, worst that happens is we learn where he is in his development.

japanese has lost its fun

this is why i hate school. japanese was never school. it was a grand cultural reclamation project. it was something more to me, the grade at the end didnt matter. so of course, my best class was always japanese, it was the only class i actually wanted to go to and learn abotu and improve in. except that feeling is almost all gone for some reason. im not really learning anymore, just putting tons of symbols and words into my short term memory. im suposed to make a 3 min speech tomorrow. mine will be a minute if im lucky. just cant write anything. assignment is so stupid. dont really care at this point. fml. and i hate that expression. but seriously. fml. id say i wish i could sleep forever but, lately my dreams have been horribly unpleasant.

UGH

BAD FUCKING DAY. Hope is such an incredible thing. Take it away and what are you left with. Not much. I dunno what Ima do with my life. Everything looks impossible. I'm not alone but...somehow this feels worse.

Early Season Thoughts

BRETT ANDERSON EXTENSION WOOOOO! Also, BRETT ANDERSON DOMINANCE WOOO!

Gio has also been pretty awesome. Actually, everyone besides Sheets has been awesome, and I'm not panicking on Sheets yet...ok I am panicking, but he could still easily revert to being an above average pitcher.

On offense, not much happiness, but that was expected. Barton has been insane. I was optimistic about Barton, he won't be this awesome all season, obviously, but if he can throw up a .400+ OBP I will be ecstatic. Pennington has been better than expected, but that might be because I'm really pessimistic about him.

The bench has been great. Rosales is a beast. Gross has had a nifty start. Patterson...well, I still believe in him.

I've been enjoying the whole first place thing, but I've been realisitc. Yes, we have been playing really well, and the performances havent been all that flukey good, but still our competition has been...less than stellar. M's, well, I've said many times I'm not a believer, and without Lee they are pretty much a joke. Angels and Rangers are just not great teams, better than us, maybe, but still not that strong. And then theres the orioles...yea...I love free wins.

Summer School

SHOULD I DO IT?!?!?!?!? Chinese intensive, courses 1 2 3 in six weeks. Sounds like hell. If I want to graduate on time, I really really should do this. May even be able to do some upper div Japanese if I do this. Gwuh. I really might do this, I'm going to hate myself for this though.

Still not convinced but...

HO! Touche FFXIII, touche, that is what you call an unexpected twist. I don't believe it actually happened, given that...well... alrite this is impossible, SPOILERS IN FOLLOWING:

I dont think Sazh is dead. Yea, he shot himself, yea, hes in a coffin all dead looking, but lets make somethin clear: I just acquired his eidolon, but havent used it. Would they really bother to create an eidolon for Sazh without showing it off first? No. Square never misses a chance to show off, this game makes that readily apparent. The whole kill off a character has already been done, doing it again would be gimicky, square has been pretty fuckin lame recently, but I dont believe tehy are that lame yet. the story still sucks, the game still kind of sucks, but this is a step in the right direction, shit is happening now, not just pointless melodrama. well theres still that too, but at least actual evetnts are happening too.

Some Initial Thoughts

...on FFXIII. I've played ~15 hours, so I'm guessing I'm about a third/halfway through.

Holy crap is it beautiful. Graphically it really has no peer, at least not that I am aware of. The cinematics, of course, are stunning, but the insane amount of detail but into the characters and environments with the in-game engine is just mind blowing. So visuals are a big plus.

Unfortunately, that's kind of where the pluses end. Square kind of took a big step away from their MMO experiments, and, never thought I'd say this but, it's kind of too bad. It's as if they said, "hey, the last game that was loved unconditionally by everyone was FFX, lets do that again, just focus all our effort onto graphics and nothing else."

That's probably a little unfair, but the way they made this game, comparisons to FFX are inevitable. I had read prior to playing that FFXIII was super linear, which I wasnt too worried about since, well, FFX wasn't exactly an open world game, but holy crap by linear people mean literally the world is linear, you walk down straight corridors for hours. Beautiful corridors, but corridors nonetheless, and it does get tiresome. FFX was pretty forward moving, herding you from place to place in a predestined order, but it didnt really bother me since the story was awfully captivating and the characters were all either interesting or at least not painfully annoying. And on top of this the gameplay was first class, the sphere grid, while simple and straight forward at first, allowed for endless amounts of time to be wasted planning different paths for you party. Even if it didn't really matter in the end, targeting certain spells and stat boosts you wanted in the future was tons of fun. FFXIII fails in all these aspects. The story, while being a pretty interesting concept, is fairly boring. This may simply be because the characters are super flat, only character I'm fond of at all is Lightening, and I have to admit her whole emo-soldier bit is gettin tiresome. And then there is Vanille, holy shit why is there Vanille. I suspect in any other game I would despise Hope, but because Vanille is in this game I'm just so dumbfounded as to why such a worthless character is in the game to care. O and the level up system just plain sucks. Totally mindless, and it caps you periodically so you dont breeze through the game too easily! Which is ridiculous since the game is pretty fuckin easy to begin with.

The combat, I will say, is awesome fun to execute, but if you don't really care you can easily get by by mindlessly setting up a healer and combatants and jamming X to victory. I mean, theres a fucking AUTO-attack/heal/whatever command, its as if they are saying that battle is just an obligatory filler from point A to B of the story, fucking retarded, makes me care still less.

So lemme just set straight since this post is comming off really negative, I am enjoying my time with the game so far, but it has been a pretty disappointing experience. It just feels like it could have been better. It's shiny, but from where I'm at, it lacks depth. I'm hopeful things pick up, like the story gets a little more interesting. The overall framework of the game kind of sucks, so that really is the only thing that can improve, hopefully something else besides, "we're enemies of everyone now! Im angry! Im sad!" happens. Hopefully endgame is good too, since the whole level up system is micromanaged by the game so tightly, endgame should be really really well balanced right? Normally endgame of RPGs are really easy since you over level on sidequests, so im hopeful in that regard too.

Well at least it's behind me

Finished my take-home final, so when I hand it over tomorrow my quarter will be done. What a fucking disaster of a quarter. One dropped class, one class I really really hope I don't fail but am not confident about at all, and one class where I should have done much better had I actually applied myself. But it is done, nothing can be changed now. Next quarter! Next quarter promises to be my best ever. No evidence, just a gut feeling. Hopefully motivation will return, hopefully a lot of smiles and hopefully not so many sad faces.

O God...

I dont put much stock into spring training results. By much I mean none really, its fun to look at but I realize by now that they mean pretty much nothing. But holy shit, that just does not happen if you are a big leaguer of Ben Sheet's caliber. Well, it doesn't usually happen to any big leaguer. Am I worried? A bit, perhaps he is hurt, but hopefully its just a bit of an outlier performance, maybe everyone in the field was hungover or something.

Faillllll

Bombed my oral test in Japanese today. Feeling sorry for myself at the moment. I really have to change things next quarter. There really is nothing more dangerous than success, just allows laziness and complacency to seep in. Though on the flip side, there's no better motivator than failure. I really really really hate myself sometimes. And by sometimes I mean right now, how fucking stupid can I get.

Mixed Bag

Saw the first blossoms of the season on some trees today. Was really pretty/uplifting. I also had my first allergy attack of the season. ah life...

WTFd

As in What-The-Falsified-documents. Because seriously, how old does this kid look (ok the formatting kind of sucks...and the link for some reason is taking me to the wrong picture, the right one is the one before the barton one...but you can kind of see him still here):



Jemile Weeks is, if I am not mistaken, a year or two older than me. He looks like...14 max in that picture. Which got me to thinking, its kind of funny how in little league baseball age fraud is always to get older kids onto younger teams, but at the pro level it is always to make players seem younger than they are. Anyway just thought that was kind of amusing, probably just this picture, but Weeks does look really young here. On a completely different note...

Counting cards is hella fun. We had casino night for on campus residents tonight, had two friends dealing, so I spent about 3 hours playing blackjack. Made a ton of money (well, fake money)! but that was probably more to do with my dealer constantly giving me amazing cards. Wasn't cheating though! Well, once I cheated, but all the other times it was either me getting lucky or actually making a smart decision because I was eventually getting the hang of the whole card counting thing. It isn't as easy as it sounds, was really floundering for a while, but after like an hour or so of practice I was starting to get the hang of it, was really pretty fun. Random luck is always fun, but if there is some sort of process behind the luck, it just makes the game that much more fun.

Cloned

Sooo...I'm pretty sure I'm Apolo Ohno. Well, his clone at least. Don't believe me? Three key pieces of evidence:

1) Both half Japanese
2) Both rock the same shaped, same colored, goatee.
3) Both have the SAME mole in the SAME spot on the left side of the neck.

If that doesn't prove it, I don't know what does. When you see me at the 2014 games collecting short track medals, you'll know why. Also, as a small side note, Ohno is my fucking hero.

Rocketsss

I don't know much about basketball. I mean, I enjoy following it, and I played a bit so I have some idea of how the game works, but at a managerial level, like building a team and whatnot, I'm fairly clueless. But holy crap, to this nub, it seems like the rockets had the deadline to end all deadlines. I mean, they got Kevin Martin, Jordan Hill, and two first rounders...for t-macs contract and Carl Landry. Obviously that isn't the whole deal, but thats what sticks in my head when I see it. Kevin Martin is a fucking beast on offense, and the one thing that gets quite annoying watching the rockets is their inability to score. This year iono how theyll do, but then again, no yao, don really care. Next year, ho my goodness, I'm gonna follow this team close, they are gonna be fucking good. At least...it seems that way to me.

Identity Ramble

I did some random survey today. My cousin sent it to me, some academic survey for multiracial adults. Didn't think much of it (aside from the $50 random giveaway I get entered into) until I actually started checking boxes, and I got kinda, I dunno, disturbed. I haven't figured out anything when it comes to my racial identity. Same story with me since, well, ever. Some of the questions just kind of nailed exactly what I feel in my heart, you know, and it felt kind of shitty. What really interested me though, was that most of the questions were phrased as though I was one unique race. Like, as if hapa is a race. I've always identified as half or hapa, but never really thought of that as a race. I am two, very very distinct, races. A question like, "I feel ashamed of my race" with boxes disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, etc., I wasn't sure at all how to answer. Like how do I answer that. What the hell is my race. I'm a proud Japanese American. I kind of shy away from my Jewish heritage. The two are apples and oranges. The thought that I am my own unique race has seriously never gotten within a million yards of my mind. I was glad I did the study though. The fact that quite a few of the questions hit so close to my own worries feels like proof that I am far from the only one who struggles the way I do with my racial identity. It's nice knowing you're not alone in the world, ya?

COLD

WTF LA?! LOW 40's?! WHERE THE FUCK IS THE WARM WEATHER.

Yui

Holy god, I cannot, for the life of me, get this song out of my head. Seriously, endless loop in my head, ALL FUCKING DAY. Someone save me from this earthbound angel going by the name of Yui.

Sheets

I like it. Ben Sheets is awesome. He also is always hurt, but hey, 10 mill on a one year deal isn't really that much, considering we only pay like half of that when we trade him midseason. Which we will do. If he gets hurt we're fucked, no way around that, but honestly, all we lose is the money. We weren't going to spend that money on other players at this point, may as well spend it on a gamble like Sheets.

I don't think this makes us a playoff team though. We'd need all three teams in our division to get unlucky and suck more than they do. Which hey, could happen I guess, but unlikely it happens to all 3. Also, our team is full of players that are either unknowns or walking injuries. If we make the playoffs, it'll be because Brett Anderson took another big leap forward and cements himself as a top 5 pitcher in the league (hey, a guy can dream right), sheets and duke manage to keep their arms healthy, mark ellis finally stays healthy or patterson remembers that he shouldn't really suck this bad in the bigs, Daric Barton or Chris Carter break out, Sweeney somehow manages to maintain his godlike fielding in right, crisp/davis dont suck or taylor replaces one of them and doesn't suck, o and pennington somehow manages to not be pennington. Pretty much if all those things happen I could see us being a playoff team, and honestly, I dont see any of those happening (except the whole brett anderson turning into some kind of deity thing, this I very much am looking forward to).

So yea, unless hurt, sheets is gone by july. Same with crisp. would not be surprised if kouz and duke also are shipped, that being if cardenas and cahill are succeeding like I hope they will be doing at AAA. Every year I go into the season with optimism thinking this might be the year. It never is. This year, not so optimistic. Team simply has too many question marks. Still can't hit, still way to much potential for injury, other than Brett Anderson, this is shaping up to be an ugly season. That being said, this is probably the year we win the world series, if only because I'm always wrong about these things.

Grades

Don't think I ever did a Fall 09 grades post. Went much better than expected. A- in J4, kinda bummed but probably deserved. P in neuroscience, which was fine. Real grade was probably a B, I'm fine with the P tho. Pysch I got a straight C. Which is awesome. I seriously thought I was going to fail that class. I had a D+ and a D on the first two midterms. The mean on the final was a 25/30, and grades were curved. That tells you how well I did on the final. I owned that shit. And icing on the cake, I didn't get an incomplete! The class required 6 hours of research work, zero of which I completed. I checked the grade list, I's were given out, not to me though. So overall, not great, but for the amount of effort that went in, very relieved.

This quarter was shaping up disastrous, as I didn't get into Ling 103. Here at LA, pretty much all upper div ling classes have 103 as a prereq. I found a loophole though, my Syntax II class at SC counts as a prereq for an upper div elective here, so I got into that class earlier than I probably should be allowed. Its called Mathematical Structures in Language, which, quite frankly, sounds fucking AWESOME. Also taking an intro to logic course, which also for some reason counts towards a linguistics degree here. Optimistic at the moment, logic has potential to be interesting I guess. An then J5, which pleases me. So feeling alright about this quarter I guess. Still been feeling a bit down mood wise, but hoping that turns around if I can manage to get swept up in my studies.