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It’s snowing in Cleveland today but I don’t care because baseball

kwjr — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:13:21 +0000

Let’s rank and categorize all 30 baseball clubs for 2013.

Title Contenders - one of these three teams will win the World Series this year
1 - Los Angeles Angels
2 - Detroit Tigers
3 - Cincinnati Reds

Very Good teams - these teams are legit contenders. (As a Phillies fan, it’s really lame to see the NL East pulling away like this)
4 - Atlanta Braves
5 - Washington Nationals
6 - Toronto Blue Jays

Good teams that could be very good
7 - San Francisco Giants
8 - Arizona Diamondbacks

Good teams that could be middle of the road
9 - Milwaukee Brewers
10 - Los Angeles Dodgers

Middle of the road - not great. Not bad. Solid teams
11 - Boston Red Sox
12 - Colorado Rockies
13 - Chicago White Sox
14 - Texas Rangers
15 - Kansas City Royals
16 - St. Louis Cardinals

Downward and Upward - one of these teams needs to rebuild, probably. The other looks like they may finally be getting the rebuilding thing done right.
17 - Philadelphia Phillies
18 - Pittsburgh Pirates

Worse than you think - Lots of projections out there love these 3 teams this year. I’m not buying any of them.
19 - Tampa Bay Rays
20 - Cleveland Indians
21 - Baltimore Orioles

Too many holes - These teams have lots of holes and should perform about as well (or about as poorly) as most people expect.
22 - Chicago Cubs
23 - Oakland Athletics

Injury Bitten - teams that could be better but won’t be better thanks to injuries.
24 - New York Yankees
25 - San Diego Padres

Bottom Feeders - the worst teams in baseball. Expect ugly seasons from these teams.
26 - Houston Astros
27 - Seattle Mariners
28 - Miami Marlins
29 - Minnesota Twins
30 - New York Mets

Bring on Opening Day!

The Sessions

kwjr — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 02:07:30 +0000

First up is a movie about awkward sex. Or something.

Top 10 Albums of 2013

kwjr — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:06:27 +0000

Here are 10 great albums released this year (ranked with some juicy Spotify embeds). It’s been a great music-year already. The plan is to update this list once I hit 20 great albums. Then 30, 40, and finally 50. My unpublished top 50 lists from 2011 and 2012 have taught me that saving things up for some big end of year reveal that no one will read doesn’t work, so let’s try this instead.

1 - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away

2 - Local Natives - Hummingbird

3 - Rhye - Woman

4 - Dawn Richard - GoldenHeart

5 - Bilal - A Love Surreal

6 - Foxygen - We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic

7 - Unknown Mortal Orchestra - II

8 - Widowspeak - Almanac

9 - Jose James - No Beginning No End

10 - Adam Green and Binki Shapiro - Adam Green and Binki Shapiro

ALSO coming tomorrow - movie discussions (I’m no critic, so I won’t say movie reviews). Blogresurrection is on.

Santigold – Disparate Youth

kwjr — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:04:09 +0000

I will admit to having missed out on Santigold’s first album. The same thing will not happen this time around. This track is great and I’m anxiously awaiting more.

Holy cow check out this video

kwjr — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:35:12 +0000

It’s an OK song and an OK video, but the technology on display here is pretty neat - you control the camera. Check it out to see what I mean.

Obviously, this is an Internet-age video and one has to wonder what they’d do with something like this during MTV’s heyday. Also, it occurs to me that the 3d viewer-controlled camera concept might be pretty awesome in our AppleTV / Microsoft Kinect powered future…

Album 13?

kwjr — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:29:53 +0000

You know what this means, right?

Annie Clark: I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. You know I love you! Shut up!

kwjr — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:14:40 +0000

Great video for a great tune from one of last year’s greatest albums.

Also, the reference for the title of this post:

2011 Wrap-up Part 1

kwjr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:44:56 +0000

I just finished December and January trips to Philadelphia and Mississippi. Things are getting back to a state of relative normalcy and I’m playing catchup with some year-end things I intended to do. First up - I brag, I pat myself on the back, and I shamelessly toot my own horn.

In 2011, through a combination of caloric restriction and jogging, I lost 65 pounds.

In 2011, through a combination of paying down student loans and a car loan, funneling money into various savings vehicles, and budgeting in earnest for the first time in life, I improved my net worth by over $11,000.

I am very proud of both of these things and just wanted to brag in public.

Windows Phone vs iPhone data usage

kwjr — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:37:52 +0000

WP7 vs iPhone data usage

iPhone users ARE data hogs, apparently and I’m proof. Check out my data usage as an iPhone owner vs my usage as a Windows Phone owner (I bought my Windows Phone in mid-November 2011). The reasons for the drop-off are pretty obvious I think - I started using my iPad much more and there are very few worthwhile apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace, so I end up not using much data on my phone.

Mississippi

kwjr — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:21:22 +0000

I’m in Gulfport, Mississippi. It’s been quite an experience thus far.

Gulfport is a wasteland. You’ll remember, Gulfport was particularly hard hit by Hurricane Katrina - probably more so than New Orleans. You can definitely see and feel it. It just feels like half the city is missing. There are vacant lots and empty buildings everywhere. I mean, you can see the steady rebuilding, but you can also see the signs of destruction. What’s really striking is how menacing the Gulf of Mexico looks and feels up close. There was a solid rain storm today, and the gulf was churning away, winds blowing, humidity in the air. I don’t think I could live here, rebuilding my life and my city with that Gulf there looking over my shoulder, threatening to tear it all down again in the blink of an eye. Gulfport is right up against the Gulf. The beach can’t be anymore than 50 yards or so wide. Then there’s a highway. Then there’s the city. Businesses and houses and everything. Craziness.