Will Hines Dot Net

I see that phrase a fair amount: “a rare and beautiful thing.” Most recently in an ESPN baseball article.

Is that phrase part of a quote? Did it definitely originate somewhere?

Tonight, I watched the Red Sox-Yankees game while sitting in the front row of Yankee Stadium, DIRECTLY BEHIND the stairs to the Sox dugout. Matt Pack had gotten these tickets very last-minute but had no idea how good they were. He called around to a bunch of people to see who could go. He finally got to me, and so at 7:15pm (yes, late) I was stepping out of the D train to meet Pack, James Eason and Aaron Bergeron (all rooting for the Sox) for the game.

When the usher sat us in the very front row, we were so dumbfounded we didn’t even realize at first that we were in [...]

The Journalista blog from The Comics Journal is outstanding. Tidbits linked in just today’s entry:

• A review of the new Gilbert Hernandez Paolmar story.
• Hilariously over-large breast drawings in super-hero comics here and here.
• Adam Koford’s 700 drawings of hobos.

Can’t beat that! In other linked goodness, Pete Rose admits he bet on the Reds (to win) every night he managed. He also bet while playing. This guy is a jerk, but I still think he belongs on the Hall of Fame. 4,000 hits is 4,000 hits.

And here’s something about a redesigned alphabet.

Here at work we have coffee from Porto Rico Importing Company, a name which I am typing from memory and I hope I have right.

I’ve had a big upturn in spam in my inbox, mostly of the “here’s a great stock” variety. MAJOR FINANCIAL ALERT and the such.

I’m buried at the ‘ol day job. Web guys: Drupal is great, but also very hard to manipulate for the newbies. It’s a set of tools, NOT a drag-and-drop solution. Not even close.

Channel 102 was last night — I enjoyed it. Dr. Miracles, Cool Jose, The Defenders of Stan and SIAS all gave me big smiles especially. I would like to make a show involving a dune buggy, a [...]

Friday, Eliza and I hoofed around The Mission and The Castro. Highlights here included a store called 826 Valencia, which was ostensibly a Pirate Supply store, but it felt more like a headquarters for McSweeney’s. I think McSweeney’s is published out in SF, right? There were very funny lists posted around the place — things like “How Ned Lost His Eye” and “What To Do If You Are Being Mopped.” And everything had an old-timey McSweeny’s-ish typeface, and they sold most of the back issues. I refuse to conduct the very small amount of research necessary to answer this question.

We also saw a sci-fi/horror bookstore that featured a hairless cat. It was creepy and adorable.

By the way, I was [...]

Hooray.

If we’ve got Theo, you can keep Damon.

Continuing my trend of listing items with minimal to no attempt at tying them together in a cohesive entry…

• Saw The Squid and the Whale– a fun-filled tale of a pompous has-been NYC writer being divorced by his philandering wife while his two kids get screwed up before your very eyes — on Wednesday (yes, it’s still playing). I really liked it, although it seemed slight, sort of. By the end I felt a bit not-full, like I had eaten just cereal all day. Regardless of that, I have a strangely-worded compliment for it: It was a remarkably responsible movie. It shows the audience the main behavior of each character and how they all feel about each other in [...]

I’ve got some bad news, people. I feel compelled to write about baseball. Just for today.

My thoughts today are about Marvin Miller, who is one of the smartest people I’ve ever heard of. He was the head of the baseball player’s union in the 1970s, and in 1975, he won the right for players to be free agents. Before that time, once a player signed with a team, they were essentially stuck with that team for life. It meant players couldn’t shop their talents to the highest bidder. With free agency, players shopped themselves around — and salaries skyrocketed.

That story could make you HATE Marvin Miller, if you see him as the man who [...]

• ESPN.com has a hilarious article about gaudy baseball uniforms of the 70s and 80s in our of our current World Series participants, the White Sox and Astros.
• I’m trying to make a place where I read all my friends’ blogs at once. Here’s my attempt at that so far: The Grey People. (edited: now it’s My Fellow Jerks)
• May God forever bless Rubber Soul, even its remakes. Any album that can make “You Won’t See Me” seem like a good song is a work of genius.

Edited: The name “The Grey People” is too confusing. So instead it’s called “My Fellow Jerks.”

Saw this (Bad News Bears, no “The” thank you) on Sunday with Kevin and Kirk. It’s was Kirk’s idea, based (I think) almost solely because he loved a scene in the original where a kid kicks another kid in the balls. So we went.

Well, I loved this movie! The Bad News Bears (original) is one of my favorite movies — perhaps my FAVORITE baseball movie, and I think this was BETTER. At the very least, it’s a model of how to remake a movie that was already good (as many people have pointed out, Hollywood seems to remake movies that don’t need it — like The Ring — rather than movies which DO, like, I don’t know, Mystery [...]