Here we go again

I hope that David Wright, imaginary boyfriend to a very large percentage of female Mets fans, can get his act together and at least stop sucking at defense. He’s young, and he seems to take it hard that he has completely forgotten how to hit on this road trip. Jose Reyes, my imaginary boyfriend, is doing much much better, and is 3-3 with a homerun. Let’s hope the Mets can get it together and win this one. The Brewers are down an 8-spot, and the Marlins and Phillies are in a crazy back and forth game, with the Marlins currently leading 7 to 6 with the bases loaded and nobody out.
As mentioned earlier, here is my awesome new shirt. My mother kept shaking her head when she looked at it, but she did consent to take pictures of me in it (my mother is of the adorably doting persuasion, and is always ready and willing to take a picture of me). There’s a better picture of me in the shirt, but this picture has the best angle of the shirt itself.

PS – Check out the new glasses.

Let’s go Metsies!

As you can see from my icon, I’m a Mets fan. Like, the biggest (I’ll have to show you my new shirt). So why haven’t I said anything about them lately?

1. I’m having flashbacks to last year.
2. I prefer not to think about them when I’m around sharp objects.

But, since they’ve won their last two games and are in the lead for the Wild Card, maybe things have turned around. It’s too soon to know for sure. This quote by Mets manager Jerry Manuel sums up my feelings: “They won’t allow me to have a laugher. They’ll make a laugher a tear-jerker. Hopefully we’ll laugh about this in November.”  He said this after the Mets won a game by the score of 9 – 7 when they’d had a lead of 8 – 2. Last night, they had a more decisive victory, and I hope they can continue to win as we go into the last week of the season. I’d still like for them to win the division, and not the Wild Card, but if that’s what we have to take, so be it.

Boom goes the dynamite!

I was rereading a Television Without Pity recap of Veronica Mars, and I came across a reference to this video. I’d actually never heard of it until the first time I read that recap, and now I’m sharing the funny with you. It’s painful, but hilarious.

Andiamo Benefit Motorcycle Run

My nephew, Satanski, is really into motorcycles. I think a lot of kids really dig them, but he’s been obsessed pretty much since he was old enough to talk and this obsession shows no sign of abating. Lately he’s been acting out quite a bit, and we don’t let him get away with it (think lots and lots of time out), but we try to do nice things for him when he is behaving well. A few weeks ago, we started to see signs for the Andiamo Benefit Motorcycle Run, and knew that we had to take him.

The motorcycle run raises money for various medical and educational charities. Each biker, passenger, or attendee at the after party pays an entry fee. The run raised about $160,000 last year (I haven’t seen figures for this year). I have no idea how I never heard of this run before this year; it’s been going on for nine years now and I’ve been home when it happened for five of those years (nonconsecutively).

The run started in Haworth, which is not even 15 minutes from here, but I’d never even stopped in that town before. It never ceases to amaze me how little I know about New Jersey, for all that I’ve lived here my whole life. I realize how ridiculous it is that I find it weird that some people I know have hardly been out of their home county, and yet there are towns in my own county about which I’m not even slightly knowledgeable (although, in my own defense, there are 70 towns in my county).

I know nothing about motorcycles, but I saw a bunch of different kinds on Sunday. I saw big ones (I heard the word “hog” used), Harleys, pretty red ones that I would ride, tiny things that looked like they’d get lapped by everybody else, and even a couple of bikes with sidecars! It was pretty awesome, and seeing so many people who were so into riding motorcycles was pretty fun. I like to see people enjoy themselves. I should have taken more (or better) pictures, but I was waving like a loon. I also took some video, but I can’t find it on my computer right now and I have no intention of checking my memory card at 12:30 in the morning, so I’ll just have to look tomorrow.

We only stayed for the beginning of the run, just while the riders zoomed onto the route, because we didn’t think Satanski would enjoy the two hours it would take for them to come back. Mom and I were enjoying the day and the kid wasn’t quite ready to head back home, so we decided to go to the park afterward. We went to Van Saun Park, which is a county park. At Satanski’s insistence, we started out by riding the train, which costs a dollar per ride for anybody over the age of two. I thought that this was a steal, until later, when a friend informed me that she remembered when a train ride cost only a quarter. Bummer. It was 90-some odd degrees on Sunday, and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the speed of the train; we went fast enough that the air felt good and helped cool me down, but not so fast that the kids on the train got queasy and hurled. It’s a delicate balance.

After the train, we went to the zoo and then to the carousel. The zoo was smelly and depressing, and all of the animals looked like they had just given up. I haven’t been to a big zoo in a couple of years, but I don’t remember the animals at Central Park Zoo looking quite so suicidal. The animals at the carousel were actually way more menacing than the actual real live animals at the zoo. I took some pictures of some of the animals in the carousel, and they are disturbing enough to warrant their own post. More to follow.

Where I’ve been

I disappeared for a bit, mostly due to the fact that I wanted to finish up the pair of socks I was knitting (for me!). I realized that I’ve really been knitting a lot in September. I’ve only read four books this whole month, and usually I read that many books in a week. So yeah, I’ve been knitting a lot, which means that I’ve also been watching a lot of tv on dvd. I still can’t believe how much I’d forgotten about Veronica Mars and Grey’s Anatomy. I’m not just talking about specific events in individual episodes. I’d forgotten love interests, major plot points, and really important instances of character development. If you’d given me a pop quiz on Veronica Mars two weeks ago, I would have failed miserably. Troy? Forgot him. Piz? How could I have forgotten Piz? Plus, I’d actually forgotten who had planted the bomb on the bus, although I did remember that that character was a bad guy.

So far, I’m not finding that I forgot the same amount of stuff in relation to Grey’s Anatomy. I wonder why this is. Perhaps it’s because Grey’s is much more present in general pop culture, so I had a better chance of being reminded of things that might otherwise be forgotten. I started with season two, since that’s what I had, and am now going back through season one. I liked Meredith better when she had some bite, and I think that the return of her spark is what made me enjoy the second half of season four as much as I did.

I went to the Andiamo Motorcycle Run this past Sunday, September 14, and I will be posting pictures of that tomorrow.

Dream on, Jumpstreet!

Yay! Veronica Mars is getting way better. I’m more than halfway through season 1 now, and we’ve gotten to the point where Logan is a much friendlier psychopath. He’s still nuts, but now he uses all those psychoses for the good of the people he likes. It’s pretty great. I really always loved the Veronica-Logan pairing, and it’s great that they spent so much time subtly altering his character so that, by the time the two of them got together, it wasn’t jarring and unexpected. I contrast this with the way that the Chuck Bass character was rehabbed rather quickly by the Gossip Girl writers. I actually adore Chuck now, but it’s not believable how the guy who tried to rape two girls in the first episode is somehow now this hardened, but secretly sweet, sorta-hero. Also, the VM production values have increased appreciably (now, when characters travel by car, the scenery they pass is real), which is definitely adding to my enjoyment.

Dated!

I started watching my Grey’s Anatomy season 2 dvds and was really struck by a lot of things. The first was that the show used to be really good. Even in the midst of that goodness, I noticed that watching episodes one after the other revealed patterns that were not obvious when the shows were spread out over a whole season. The writers seemed to like some lines a lot, and used them in various episodes, giving them to different characters. The Izzy/Denny story line seemed even less probable this time around; what would make them fall in love so quickly, and why weren’t stronger measures used when Izzy’s actions were revealed? Why weren’t the police called? Something that big couldn’t stay a hospital matter.

Derek was really indecisive, and his wishy-washiness really angered me a lot. He wanted to have his cake and eat it, too, and now I see why other characters considered him so insufferable. I still feel for poor Mer, though, and don’t think that she was as annoying as other viewers find her. A lot of crappy stuff happens to her, and it’s not usually her fault.
So that show has held up reasonably well. But then I finished with Grey’s and decided to watch Veronica Mars. I got hooked on that show after having heard so many of my friends rave about it. I’d spent 24 snowy hours of a blizzard watching all of those episodes, and then the first half of the second seaon. So when I popped in the first dvd of season 1, I was prepared to be bowled over all over again. While the funny lines are there, the acting is off and the really low production values are kind of glaring. There are green screens for everything, including every car scenes. The supporting actors are often pretty terrible. The videography is cheap-looking. So I don’t know if I wasn’t into noticing things like that back then, or if I just didn’t care. I sort of think I didn’t notice.

With both shows, it’s fun to watch characters evolve, and to see little things that I forgot happened. I had remembered that Veronica and Logan hadn’t gotten along in the beginning, but I hadn’t remembered that she and Weevil hadn’t been pals to begin with, either. It seems to me that Grey’s has aged better, but that probably has to do with a more polished cast and way higher production values. Also, VM is so steeped in teen culture, which changes so quickly that even things from last year can sometimes seem dated. Paris Hilton guest-starred in one of these episodes, and now she’s not even relevant as a punch line.

Too Funny Not to Share

I wanted to share a video that I first saw on Jezebel, because it is just that hilarious.

Good news!

Yay! A judge announced that Imam Mohammad Qatanani, a local Muslim cleric, will be allowed to stay in the United States. Imam Qatanani had been charged with having ties to Hamas, and failing to disclose a related prior conviction in Israel. Some of the evidence presented included a signed confession from Mr. Qatanani, obtained after he’d been detained and tortured in Israel for three months. The confession was in Hebrew, a language he does not speak. He did not realize that he’d been convicted during his detention, and therefore did not report it when he applied to be a United States citizen.

According to Judge Alberto Riefkohl, the case presented by the Department of Homeland Security lacked evidence and credibility. I’ve been following this case, and I’m glad that it has such a happy ending. Imam Qatanani is beloved not only in the Islamic community, but has also been supported by many non-Muslims; rabbis, pastors, lawmakers, FBI agents, and other concerned citizens in the Paterson area were vocal in their support of Mr. Qatanani, and they, too, shared in the joy of learning that he will not be deported from the United States.

I don’t understand how our government can condone and participate in actions like this. Not only do we have Guantanamo Bay, which is more of a disgrace every day, we also allow people to be taken to other nations specifically for torture, and accept from other nations information received by people who are mistreated, if not the victims of outright torture. Every day, in addition to the possibility of death, our troops face being kidnapped, tortured, and forced to give false confessions in hostile nations. We view this with the utmost condemnation, as well we should. So how can we believe that this is okay when the person being tortured is not American (by birth, at least)?

I’m glad that Imam Qatanani’s story has a happy ending, and that after all the physical, emotional, and legal hurdles, he can go back to focusing on his family and his work in the community. I’m just sad that this goes on at all, and that there are probably people in this situation with fewer resources or supporters, whose stories don’t end as happily.

STELLA!!!

It’s kind of funny that I got traffic last week based on my post about Keith. I’m strangely flattered that, of all the people out there snickering at Keith, a blogger at the SL Tribune found it in his heart to single me out. I doubt that any New York sites are clamoring for my take on Stella’s exit, but I’m going to give it to you all anyway.

The loser: I thought that Stella’s earlier outfits were really interesting, and I’m sad that the quality of her work decreased so appreciably. Also, I like the way she says “leathuh.” Have you noticed that the last three people eliminated had been in the bottom two the week before their departure? Or was it four? There was the boring “surrealist” person who I refuse to look up and she went home at some point in recent memory, so I’m just going to say four here. So at least the judges are paying attention to who isn’t bringing the awesome. If pattern holds, I guess Joe might be out of here next week, but his previous work was was kind of all over the place in quality, so he might bounce back and end up winning the challenge.

The Winner: I was happy for Leanne, because at the beginning of this season I couldn’t figure out which one she was, and now I recognize her before they put her name up on the screen. Progress. Plus! Her dresses are really cute and I would wear some of them. Not the one that won tonight, though; I am an Amex cardholder, but I’m 99% sure that dress would not look any good on me. Also, she’s funny, and the previews for next week make it seem like she was kind of pissing off Kenley which, in my eyes, can never be wrong.

Everybody else:
A lot of people are getting sick of Terri, and I guess she may be more annoying than they edit her to seem. But two of those people are bitchy Kenley and bitchier Jerell, so what does that mean? While I’m not sold on her being annoying, I do find it easier to see what the other designers mean when they talk about her not having many looks. Everything she makes is excellent, but all really similar. I wonder if the judges are going to mention that soon. I think that if it all hadn’t been so well-executed, she would have had problems before this. They don’t usually let designers coast on the same design for this long even, so she may be overdue, or maybe her stuff just isn’t as similar as I think it is.

Korto makes me really nervous, because during the runway shows she gets heaps of praise and doesn’t seem at all happy with it. What does it take to make this woman crack a smile? She’s often really excited and hopeful about her designs in the workroom, but not so much later on. I wonder how much enthusiasm helps your case, and whether she isn’t doing herself a disservice with the extreme stoicism. Blayne isn’t as orange as he used to be, and his designs have also improved as the show has progressed. I believe that these two facts are related. I refuse to give Suede any serious thought until he stops using the third person so frequently.