In Arizona, not Oklahoma

Tony Pena Junior is working the count and walking. Maybe we should re-visit the idea of teaching our stubborn dog some new tricks. (Or maybe we should authorize eye surgery for the dumb dog.)

Other guys who have impressed through two games in Surprise against the Rangers (in no particular order): Butler, Jacobs, Olivo, Buck, Crisp, Davies, Kila.

Not so much: Teahen (OMG) and Gordon.

Gordon will probably have a really good year, but we bet he leads the league in watching called third strikes. It's going to drive us crazy.

Josh Hamilton will be in the top three in the MVP voting.

That is all.

Except for this: We can't stand to watch another season of Teahen trying to find his groove, regardless of what position he plays. Moneyball is one of our favorite players, but he's killing us.

P.S. This team is going to have more power than we've seen in KC in a long time (ever?). Having said that, the ball goes boom in Arizona.

When did Bombay become Mumbai?

Did Campbell Brown get pregnant since the last time we watched CNN? Or is she just getting fat?

This goofy Tom Foreman guy is beyond parody. You can't make it up.

Are we going to be forced to watch Fox News from now on?

The hair on our legs is disappearing! This is SERIOUS.

The Royals are so screwed if Alex Gordon doesn't learn to hit lefties (and hit with two-strike counts).

If there's one guy who should be doing some good steroids, it's Billy Butler. Man, he could really be a monster if he replaced some of that baby flesh with actual muscles. (Yes, we know he supposedly slimmed down, be he still looks soft and pudgy to us.)

We almost feel sorry for the Republicans. We're pretty sure that Bobby Jindal never screwed an art major.

Then again, we're pretty sure Obama would have benefited from sleeping with a hot economics major at some point.

P.S. There's no way Billy Butler has the balls to pull out his own ingrown toenail. Guillen probably had it right when he called Billy a big fucking baby.

THIS JUST IN: Lion mutilates 42 midgets

The fight was called in only 12 minutes, after which 28 fighters were declared dead, while the other 14 suffered severe injuries including broken bones and lost limbs, rendering them unable to fight back.

Bong blamed for fire at MU fraternity

We have to monitor news clips as part of our real job. The headline above appeared in our in-box recently, and of course it caught our attention. Here is how the story started.

Fire investigators are blaming an unattended bong for a fire at the Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The following day a correction was published:

CORRECTION: An unattended hookah was the cause of the fire at Sigma Chi on Sunday night.

Classic.

This is the last day of our acquaintance

Not really. We've just been listening to Sinead O'Connor again. In a previous life, we must have been a furiously talented woman who had been seriously scorned. Or maybe we're just pissed at Orlando Hudson. Or maybe we just have a thing for women with shaved heads.

Who knows about these things?

Did we ever tell you that Junior does this great impression of a Top Chef contestant who keeps talking about balsamic vinegar? Some day, Junior will go to Hollywood and become a star.

We are going a little crazy waiting for baseball season to start. There's nothing like warm weather and baseball on a mostly-daily/nightly basis.

Also, we are going to try to talk one of our friends into having a party at his house when the weather heats up. We would have the party ourself, but we don't technically have a house. Anyway, we have it all planned out. Only funky people and maybe a few of their funky kids will be invited. There will be backyard BBQ, washers, a sprinkler for the kids to run through, lots of beer, Marlboro Lights, pot smoking in the garage (for people who are into that), loud music, Hawaiian shirts, funny hats, low-grade explosives, and some Jungle Juice. The Jungle Juice will be in a big tub and will consist of vodka, cranberry juice, Jagermeister, Red Bull, Fiji Water, possibly some gin and tonic, and floating fruit. We think a Wet T-Shirt Contest would also be very appropriate, but that would probably depend a lot upon the popularity of the Jungle Juice. Basically, we want to party like it's 1979.*

*Yes, we know there wasn't any Red Bull or Figi Water in 1979. But those will be the only two things that aren't authentic (unless the Wet T-Shirt Contest goes over big time).

P.S. Was Jagermeister around in 1979? We kinda doubt it; but having three non-authentic things would have ruined our fake boobs joke.

The Plan

We are really looking forward to this season. But, just for fun, let's look ahead to three seasons from now. Third base, right field, first base and DH are covered with some combination of Gordon, Hosmer, Moose Tacos, Butler and Kila. Dejesus might still be around in LF. Aviles could be the long-term answer at 2B. So, over the next three years, we need to focus on CF, SS, and catcher. At least one of those positions will probably be filled through the organization. We will probably make at least one big trade to fill another of the positions. And we're guessing Glass will sign off on at least one major or mid-major free agent acquisition.

The pitching situation looks good, too. Meche will probably be gone after his contract expires. But Greinke is locked up for a little while. And you've got to figure that Hochevar (or maybe Davies or Banny) will become dependable. Then you've got help on the way from a number of possibilities: Cortez, Duffy, Montgomery, Melville. There are some other promising arms, also, (like Rosa) and some of them will bolster the pen. Finally, we'll still have Soria to close out games.

In conclusion, DM is doing a good job, the future looks bright, and, in the next few years, the Royals should draft almost exclusively centerfielders, shortstops, catchers, and pitchers. (Actually, this is kind of obvious and should pretty much be the draft plan for all organizations.)

We're about to call bullshit on the stimulus thing

We still like Obama. A lot. We still want him to succeed. Desperately. We still don't understand the economy. At all. But we are are starting to get really worried about the way we're attacking this huge economic problem. Does it make sense, right now, to include a bunch of money for social programs in the stimulus package? Do we really want to keep chastising people for making and spending lots of money...when we REALLY need people to make and spend lots of money? This recession is feeding on itself. Let's just hope that nobody unionizes the new labor jobs and energy sector jobs that we are supposedly going to create.

Personally, we've really got to stop throwing away so much money on women and booze. We want to do our part to help stimulate things, but...? This is getting depressing. Opening Day can't get here fast enough. This might be the first time that we're more bullish on the Royals than on the fate of capitalism. And we're only half-way bullish on the Royals.

Slumdog and O-Dog

Congratulations to the Jayhawks for winning that basketball game that some people in the state of Kansas were talking about.

We saw Slumdog Millionaire this weekend. We went to some artsy-fartsy movie house, and we loved it -- but not because it was artsy-fartsy...the place was full of pretentious people who wanted to be seen more than they wanted to see the film. We enjoyed the experience because a) they served beer (wine too) and b) they had an intermission. During the intermission, while all of the beautiful people were faking their way through intellectual conversations, we got to go outside and smoke.

Orlando Hudson (O-Dog) is a really nice fit for the Royals. Of course, the Royals don't have any money left to spend. But, then, nobody in baseball has any money left to spend. Hudson is only 31. He plays gold glove caliber defense. His bat is more than playable. He gets on base. With him, we would have a real major leaguer at almost every position, and on the bench.

Every Man A Wildcat!

We went to KSU and Mizzou. We are a huge KSU fan (when they're doing well). And we are gearing up for this weekend's match-up between the Cats and Chickenhawks. The sign above (it's brand new) is on I-70 at the Paxico exit, near our grandfather's farm. EMAW stands for Every Man A Wildcat.

P.S. Yes, we did two posts in one day. You still have to read the other one.

Important news out of St. Louis

So we were just reading the St. Louis Post-Dispatch at lunch. This is not a good place to find Royals news. However, we did learn that somebody created a fake Dalai Lama account on Twitter (?). Apparently, one of the tweets (twits?) -- the language of this twitter stuff just sounds so gay -- said something like: His Holiness is just as interested in technological issues as he's been during the last 14 reincarnations. Also, an elephant at the St. Louis Zoo has herpes. APPARENTLY, this is the kind of herpes that doesn't have anything to do with sex, which is a relief. We're pretty sure they don't make prophylactics large enough for pachyderms.

And THIS just in: St. Louis BBQ still sucks. (AND a stadium expert who is one of the lead engineers on the new Yankee Stadium project told us that the renovated K is awesome and the new Busch Stadium is kinda crappy.)

We could see it happening

Heard Moneyball Mark Teahen on MLB radio last night. He sounds confident that he can play second base. He is kinda starting to convince us. The Royals don't appear to have any confidence in Alberto Callaspo right now. His range must be disappearing or something. Makes you wonder if he'll even make the team. Makes you wonder if Orlando Hudson isn't still on the radar. Anyway, unless there are injuries (and there will be some), a lot of guys like German, Shealy, Gobble, etc., will be on the outside looking in by late March. And those are guys with contracts that would have to be eaten. Regardless, the Royals have more depth than they've had in a long time. We're worried about OBP and infield defense, but we've taken note of how the division is up for grabs. Hopefully Gordon and some of the others have break-out years. Yeah, we could see it happening.

NOTE: We will be able to envision big things for the Royals early and often -- until they go on a long losing streak in late April. Then we'll go back to being surly.

We get the news we need from the weather report

Does this mean David Glass might still be willing to throw a bunch of money at Ben Sheets?

Let's pretend the Royals do sign Sheets. On paper, they would definitely (in our opinion) have the best rotation in the AL Central: Meche, Sheets, Greinke, Hochevar, Davies/Bannister. Would that be enough to make them the favorite in the division? We think it would certainly make them serious contenders because, hey, it's all about pitching.

Then you'd just have to pray that Sheets stays healthy.

P.S. We're going to a reggae thing with a beautiful young woman (yes, another art major) tomorrow night. Apparently it's Bob Marley's birthday. We can't believe our luck. Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug.

UPDATE: MLB Trade Rumors says Sheets might need surgery, so forget we ever mentioned him.

Enhancing the stimulus package

With the money we've spent in Iraq, we could theoretically double (or quadruple -- we get our facts wrong all of the time) the size of the proposed stimulus package. But, if the war didn't exist (or if the guy who started it never became president), we probably wouldn't need a huge stimulus package to begin with.

Also, why is Obama mad about corporations buying jets? Sure, it looks bad. But what we really need corporations and people to do right now is buy things like jets and cars and go go on junkets.

Did you know that the guy who scored more than 40 points against Texas last weekend is related to Roberto Clemente?

P.S. Do the words stimulus and package make anybody else feel a little dirty?

P.P.S. We lost our personal mojo there for a little while, but it has returned with vigor.

P.P.P.S. Too bad there's not any Royals news to talk about, unless you count the fact that Banny agreed to his 2009 contract.

We've got nothing to do today but smile (and work)

This was a great weekend, even if we were tempted into breaking one of our New Year's resolutions on Friday. We took Junior fishing at Lake Taneycomo on Saturday, and we caught the shit out of trout. We got home just in time to watch the exciting conclusion to the KSU-Texas basketball game. The Super Bowl didn't end quite the way we wanted it to, but it sure was a good game. And the best part of the weekend was that, for the first time in forever, we didn't even have to go over to the ex-wife's house (that we still help pay for) once. Also, someone made us a very nice CD with a bunch of nice songs on it.