Why Germans Love Open Wheel Racing

So, I've gotta say, I've always sorta like Formula One racing. They go fast, the cars look cool. And they have the best drivers in the world. And now I think that am a fan of their superior leadership, in the form of Max Mosley.

All I know is that anytime you hear the words "Nazi" and "sex scandal" in the same sentence, nothing but awesomeness can be the outcome. This ESPN article (based off of the London Times article, I think) describes the scenario. Apparently, the leader of F1 (who's 67 years old) is on tape being both a Nazi concentration camp prisoner and guard (I'm assuming at different times) in a "sadomasochistic orgy." I told you that nothing but awesomeness could follow.

First of all, homeboy's 67. If 40's the new 30, and 50's the new 40, then according to my math, using appropriate metric conversions and exchange rates, apparently 67's the new awesome. And, he's named Max Mosley. That just sounds pornographic. I have to say that I'm jealous.

Next, Spitzer's a chump. He's paying $2500 for Ashley Dupre to pretend that she's his girlfriend. Our boy Maximus got 5 prostitutes for $5000. And they had to act like Jews in a concentration camp, or Nazi guards. Tell me who's getting the better value. If you're keeping score at home, that's:

Formula One Racing - 1
State of New York - 0.

However, in fairness, the new Governor of NY seems to be pretty sweet, as well.

The best part is that Max's dad was the founder of the British Union of Fascists. I have to say that if I'm going to be in a union, that's the one that I want to be in. I don't want this lousy GEO crap that I'm paying dues for (yeah, apparently $100 gets taken out of my paycheck every year to fund a bunch of annoying flyers and other busy work that supports paying dirty, hippies in LAS that need people to fund them after they made the poor life decision of being an English or History or Women's Studies major). I want to be a part of a union that represents me.

-Chairman

The Carnival

Roller Coasters.

Have you guys been watching March Madness? My bracket picks went good early, starting off 14-2 on the first day. And then I tanked the rest of the first round, and sort of floundered in the 2nd round, leaving me with only 9 out of the 16 teams in the Sweet 16. And then something funny happened. Not only did I end up with 7 out of 8 correct in the Elite 8 (with only USC whiffing, but I already knew that on the first day of the tourney), but then I also managed to get all 4 Final Four teams correct. Sadly, I'm not in an tourney pool this year. Oh well. But the funny thing is that my big predictions all went off well - Bill Self got the monkey off his back. X ran into the Elite 8, and faced off against Huggie in a nice OT game in the Sweet 16. If Kansas really beats Memphis in the finals, you'll see me really start to believe my own hype.

Crystal Balls.

It's time for baseball. And much like with college baseball, this is probably the most uninformed that I have been since I can remember. Normally, by now, I will have blown off a few afternoons worth of class to come home to watch spring training games. I think that I've watched maybe 2 at-bats of spring training. So, this year, we're sort of flying blind. Naturally, expect the best preseason predictions to date. I'm also reverting to an old standby. Yanks and Braves, and build your predictions around that idea :-)

AL Division Winners (and Wild Card): Yankees, Tigers, Angels, Red Sox
NL Division Winners (and Wild Card): Braves, Cards, D-Backs, Mets
Teams that will just miss: Indians, White Sox, Phillies, Dodgers, Cubs
Teams that will make a run early and fade by August: Blue Jays, Mariners, Brewers, Reds
AL Pennant: Yankees
NL Pennant: Braves
World Series Champs: Yankees
All-Time Best Redundant Name for a Coach: Dick Pole
All-Time Best Non-Redundant Name for a Coach: Rusty Kuntz
AL Cy Young and MVP: Chien-Ming Wang and A-Rod
2 Other AL Cy Young Candidates: Erik Bedard and Mariano Rivera
2 Other AL MVP Candidates: Manny Ramirez and Miguel Cabrera
Under the Radar AL Cy Young and MVP Candidates: Javier Vazquez and Gary Sheffield
NL Cy Young and MVP: Johan Santana and Mark Teixeira
2 Other NL Cy Young Candidates: Carlos Zambrano and Jake Peavy
2 Other NL MVP Candidates: Chase Utley and David Wright
Fun NL name to write and say: Fukudome
Under the Radar NL Cy Young and MVP Candidates: Aaron Harang and Derek Lee
Hitters ready to blow up (that no one talks about): James Loney and Melky Cabrera
Intriguing young AL bats and arms: Adam Jones and Hughes/Chamberlain/Kennedy/Lester/Bucholz
Intriguing young NL bats and arms: The Upton Brothers and Johnny Cueto/Edison Volquez
edit 4/2: Meant to say the D'Back Brothers (Upton and Drew)

People are really high on the Cueto and Volquez duo for the Reds. If they can manage to pitch well, the Reds will have a chance to contend. If not, we may be in trouble. But, adding a legit closer should help stabilize our entire pitching staff. Oh. And I think that the Yankees will be really good, like I do every year.

-RG

Time Out!

You know you're getting old when your childhood icons are retiring. The last one that hit me was Barry Larkin. And now? Happy trails, C-Webb.

For those of us who watched college hoops in the early 90's, that Fab Five team was so polarizing - you either revered them or your despised them. Regardless of how you felt about them, you knew that they changed the face of college basketball. As for me? I was a fan. Never liked Duke or North Carolina, and rooted for the Fab Five to win in both championship games (though I did root against them in the Final Four, against the Herb Jones-led 4-seed Cincy Bearcats who also shocked a lot of people in making a deep run for Huggie).

C-Webb couldn't make it back from a gimpy knee, and rides off into the sunset. As recently as 2006, he averaged 20 and 10 for the season (playing in 75 games), though how he did it was very different from when he first came into the league. More interestingly, he improved his free throw shooting over the course of his career from 50% when he came into the league (shockingly bad for a decent shooter) to a respectable 79% in 2005. Perhaps Shaun Pruitt has some hope at the line down the road.

Even though he wasn't the best talker in that group (a distinction that goes to Jalen Rose), C-Webb was probably the most cerebral. Of the NBA athletes in the public eye, Charles Barkley would make the most interesting and entertaining politician, MJ would probably be the most electable, but C-Webb may be the one who would have the most societal impact.

I suppose that this makes Shaq's resurgence since the his trade to the Suns all the more remarkable. For someone his size to still be running around at the age of 36, scoring 15 points and grabbing 12 boards a game, and still blocking over a shot a game, after16th years as a pro is pretty impressive. But his time will come too. And I'm sure that I'll think back fondly when it does.

-Chairman

Hybrid w/ 27" Rims

First of all, after 1 day of March Madness, I'm 14-2 in my picks. Unfortunately, one of the 2 losses was USC, who I had going to the Elite 8 (mainly since I think that O.J. Mayo is a stud who's been playing out of position this year, sort of like E.J. Gordon, only Mayo has been forced to play 2, while Gordon has been playing too much point). Oh well. I can't remember when I've watched less college basketball on TV. Between the Big Ten Network making it difficult for me to watch Illini road games, and the quality of the NBA, this is actually the least interest I've had in college hoops in a while. Expecially since both the Illini and the Bearcats are not in the dance. I'm still rooting for Huggie to do well, I want to see Bill Self finally get the monkey off his back, and I would be interested in seeing X make a run (though X may run into Huggie in the Sweet 16, which would leave me sort of torn).

In case anyone cares, my relatively uninformed (by my standards, anyway) opinion has all four 1-seeds making it to the Final Four, with Kansas over Memphis in the finals (just to be contrarian). I think that from the start there have been 5 teams that have set themselves apart (UNC, UCLA, Memphis, Kansas, Tennessee), and a few more on the next tier (Louisville, Georgetown, Texas, Wisconsin, Duke, and maybe Xavier and Butler). After that, you run into a number of fatally flawed teams that aren't particularly good. So, unless there's a compelling reason, just send the top teams deep, and the next tier right behind them. The one compelling reason that I had was O.J. Mayo against a slow Wisconsin team, but it turns out that we never got there.

...switching gears, well, tires, anyway...

Anyway, it turns out that I've still got a bit of that gearhead mentality in me from my old engineering days. Not much, mind you, but some. I've been playing around with my bike - will probably change out some brakes pads, some cables, and maybe even the front derailleurs, which are rusted solid.

A couple days ago, I had to change the back tire, which had gotten too worn, resulting in a flat. So, I wander off to Wal-Mart to buy a new inner tube and some tires, but when I got home, I realized that the 26" mountain bike tire that I had bought had no hope of fitting on the rim, no matter how hard I pulled. In fairness, the rim only measured about 13" from center to edge, so I assumed that it was a 26" rim, which is standard for a lot of mountain bikes. But at the end of the day, all I had was a bare rim, with no tire. So, I go and return everything to Wal-Mart, and get a little smarter, and pick up some stuff at Dicks', but that wasn't right, either. Finally, I head into a cycle shop to see what I really needed. Turns out that I had a hybrid bike, which needed tires that were basically the size of road tires, but wider, essentially somewhere between a road bike and a mountain bike. Go figure.

So I've been rolling on a hybrid w/ 27" rims for a while now. When I bought the bike for $25 about 2 years ago, I just figured that the bike was a mountain bike that had mix-and-match wheels on there, since the front tire looked like a wide road tire, and the back tire looked like a worn mountain bike tire. It turns out that I was wrong.

But after being an idiot for a while, I've got a bike that I can use again (which I'm actually going to add to my workout routine).

-Chairman

My New Dream Job

As part of my greater plan for my run for the Presidency (tentatively dubbed "Roland 2036: Death Before Dishonor," you can see the basic message about halfway down), I think that a couple terms as the Governor of NY will be helpful. My run for Albany will be primarily based on fiscal responsibility. My speech will probably go something like this:

"As Governor of NY, I will rigidly enforce fiscal responsibility. The taxpayers of NY have entrusted us with the act of stewardship. And stewards, we will be. We must be held accountable to the people who entrust us with the public good.

I have seen pictures of Ashley Dupre, and while she is cute, one question must be asked. Really? $2000 a night? That just screams of government waste, and the broken pork barrel system of kickbacks that we have become so accustomed to. There will no longer be pretty cute, $2000 a night call-girls in the Governor's office. I will ensure that the Governor's office is fiscally responsible with their call-girls. We will bring in independent auditors to ensure that we spend much less, or get much hotter call-girls to serve the public office.

We must end the corruption. We must be transparent with our operations. Is this a difficult task? Will there be people who will fight these changes? Of course it is, and of course there will be. Must we make these changes? Can we make these changes? YES, WE MUST, and YES, WE CAN. YES. WE. CAN."

What do you guys think? Will a couple of terms as the Governor of NY help out in my dash to the White House?

-Chairman

So Where's the Honeymoon?

Well, I figured out where I'm getting married. For the longest time, I thought that it was going to be Vegas. Or Thailand. But I've got a new location in mind. Montana. Check this article out.

It's amazing. You don't even have to be there. It'll be so much cheaper that way, and much less boring/infuriating than planning and attending my own wedding.

On the other hand, I may move out to Montana so that I can apply for a job as a judge in Montana.

Conversely, we can make some real money if we can get enough people to establish residency in Montana, we can start a heck of a business selling citizenship. I mean, why risk your lives on some silly raft with no engine? Why risk a false identity that may get you in trouble with Homeland Security? Why worry about quotas that are placed on immigrants?

For only $15,000, you can marry a U.S. citizen by proxy and enjoy all of the benefits of citizenship. Come into the country at your leisure. Don't have $15,000? No worries. We have the Indentured Servant Payment Plan, where you can still become a citizen, and have a small (okay, moderate) percentage of your paycheck garnished for the foreseeable future.

What do you guys think? Anyone want to invest in my new venture? Where the heck is Montana, anyway?

-Chairman

Stand and Deliver

It's a peculiar thing, to be put into a situation where you have to perform. The people around you sometimes hope for something, and somehow that hope gets put onto your shoulders. It doesn't happen often. And when it does happen, sometimes a lack of success isn't even noticed. But sometimes you know when it does happen.

When I think about legacies, I think about moments. Those are the most tangible things for me. Outcomes are so often difficult to disentangle. It's interesting (no commentary here, though), that if you think back over the last 25 years, of memorable presidential moments, you think about things like, "Mission Accomplished." "I did not have sexual relations..." "Boxers or briefs?" Puking in Tokoyo. "Read my lips, no new taxes." "...tear down this wall."

Some of the events are positive, and some are negative, and others still are neutral, though all are interesting. For example, the memories of George H.W. Bush are both bad. He threw up on some Japanese dignitaries, and then raised taxes after promising to not raise them. Reagan's emphatic talk was part of what won the Cold War. Bill Clinton's moments are marked with youthfulness (appearing on MTV), and infidelity/dishonest (for cheating on Hillary and they lying about it). And Lil' Bush has the inspiring memory of walking on a aircraft carrier, wearing the flight suit, and telling us that we had won the war (whoops!).

One instance that's fresh in my mind is one from George W. Bush, in Yankee Stadium, to start Game 3 of the 2001 World Series, after 9/11. Our guy threw a literal and symbolic strike, that suggested that America should be unafraid, and that our lives were going to continue, despite tragic events. Of course, much of that has been lost since then, given this lukewarm war, where we are neither strong enough mentally to really win the war, nor were we weak enough to allow things to pass. Similarly, the economic policies over the last few years have been somewhat suspect. But that doesn't change the moment from Game 3 in 2001.

Overall, you look back, and you see that the events don't really speak to the quality of the presidency. But that's what I remember. So even though they may not be representative, the memorable events matter quite a bit.

About 2 weeks ago, AC, one of my colleagues passed away. He had died when complications arose during surgery to remove a cancerous mass in his chest. It has been a strange time for my program. Though I'm not terribly close to all of the folks in the doctoral program, AC was a friend. We had come into the program together. My advisor was also AC's advisor, so it's been a little close to home for me. We had a memorial service for AC this past Friday. It was interesting to have the solemn time in the green sea of chaos of Unofficial St. Patrick's Day that enveloped the campus. Obviously, it wasn't deliberate, but it was a nice contrast. I spoke a little bit at the service, representing the doctoral students, as well as some former doctoral students who have since moved on to professor jobs around the country. I am one of the few native English speakers in the program, as well as one of the senior doctor students. I think that I had to accept this role, though I don't particular relish public speaking.

I helped echo the sentiments that AC's other friends made. And I encouraged the people to help remember AC by incorporating some of the good things that he did into our lives. And in the end, that's really all that we can do. I don't often get the chance to be memorable (in a good way, at least!). I had the chance this past Friday. I think that I made the most of it.

-Chairman