Realm of the Wombat

And the doctor in the sky
Gonna bring his chopper down
Gonna bring me out alive
And set me on the ground
Once more again - Blinking Lights (for me)

As album releases go, I don’t get more excited than when the Eels come out with something new. Every new disc is an experience. The latest effort from Mark Oliver Everett’s band is a 2-CD, 33 track with guest appearances by Tom Waits and Peter Buck.

To my untrained ear, the last two albums (Souljacker, Shootenanny!) by the Eels were rather disjointed, with a lot more flat out rock than their first three (Beautiful Freak, Electro-Shock Blues, Daisies of the Galaxy). BL&OR feels more like the earlier recordings, especially in that it has a much more personal aura. My first impression was a dreamier, more upbeat sounding version of Electro-Shock Blues. As for individual tracks, “Railroad Man” rates among my favorite songs. Also noteworthy are the dance-craze parody “Going Fetal” and “Old Shit/New Shit,” the story of life at a crossroads. Following the lead of prior albums, the new release finishes optimistically with the wisdom of “Things the Grandchildren Should Know.” It’s dangerous to claim that an album this new is one of my favorites ever, but I think this one will certainly belong in that class.

It’s another cloud car! I don’t remember which I used to see on San Pablo occasionally. This one seems to be a resident of frat row just south of campus.

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My normal item/pocket situation is wallet in my left pocket and keys, space pen, and any change in my right pocket. Today, however, I’m wearing pants that have a hole in the right pocket. My pen or loose change will easily go through the hole. To compensate therefore, I’ve reversed my normal pocket pattern, i.e. wallet on right, keys/pen on left. It’s worked pretty well in that I haven’t lost anything yet, but I’ve felt weird all day. I have to keep checking to make sure I have everything and I keep reaching in the wrong pocket when I need an item. I’ll lose my mind if I have to go another day like this.

It’s been 21 years since I’ve seen a game at Yankee Stadium. The last time was in 1984 when the Tigers visited the Yanks during their last championship season. It was glove day, and I’m sure if I look around the house long enough, I’ll find the small, plastic-leather glove with the New York Bus Service logo in the pocket that I received that day. I remember that for some reason (traffic or parking) dad and I didn’t get there until the fourth inning, and that the Tigers had the lead at that point. I don’t remember too much else about the game, but checking the archives at Retrosheet, June 27 seems like the most likely date, as the Tigers had a 3-1 lead in the 4th, but lost 5-4, as New York scored 3 runs in the bottom of the 8th and held on for the win. I’m surprised that it was a night game, but school would have been out by then, so it seems possible at least.

A trip east to give a talk, plus a road trip by the Mets, and the Oakland Athletics only visit to New York this season precipitates this unexpected return of the Maleriches to the Bronx. The A’s took the first game of the series 6-3 in 10 innings, as the Yankees $300 million infield crumbled in the extra frame. In game two, the A’s were stifled by Mike Mussina, who tossed a complete game shutout. Joe Blanton started for the Athletics, and after surrendering a few early runs, settled down, providing another positive sign in the young pitchers development. Unfortunately, he was again on the short side of the ledger.

The series finale featured Oakland ace Rich Harden against the downward spiraling Kevin Brown for the Yankees, a seemingly solid matchup for the green and gold. Dad feared that our lives might be in danger sitting in the enemy’s bleacher section, so I let my green #40 jersey and screwball hat do the talking for me.

Let me say one thing about Yankee Stadium before I talk about the game. There was more trash on the field there than any other baseball field I’ve ever been. Maybe it was just the effect of the windy day, but there must have been fifty plastic bags on the field throughout the game. Oh, one more thing. I’m sure not all Yankee fans are so ignorant, but the ones surrounding us in the bleachers were pretty bad. Example quotes, “Durazo? He’s Venezuelan,” or worse, “Mariano [Rivera] is white, idiot!”

While I had high hopes that the A’s would take this game and, hence, the series, but it turned out to be a typical performance. Harden worked in and out of trouble in the first three innings. On offense, Oakland loaded the bases in the 2nd with no outs and agonizingly failed to score. They filled the bases in the 4th also, but again couldn’t capitalize. Further chances never materialized. Harden finally cracked in the bottom half of the 4th, allowing a lead off homer to ARod. New York eventually added 5 more runs, but with the state of the A’s offense, a one-run lead plays as if its 10.

Our team may have been defeated, but the Malerich family went into the devil’s lair, faced his minions, and escaped unscathed. We’ll see how things turn out when Yankees visit the East Bay this weekend (Mussina vs. Blanton).

Even when travelling to the Avenue of the Giants, I keep an eye open for Berkeley cars. I wish I had a shot of this fine specimen actually going through the Chandelier Tree, but it wouldn’t fit through.

Part of me wishes I didn’t get this one. I was in a free poker tournament Friday evening. Since it didn’t cost me anything, the goal was to win or be out early. I got through the first round, playing pretty well and with a bit of luck. Then there was a long wait before the start of the second round. I didn’t bust early, so now I have to win. Of course I lost on the third hand of the round. By the time I picked up my bag at the lab and got down to the bus stop, I was resigned to take the 8:50, a 15 minute wait. During this dead time I noticed this wagon. The sides aren’t too special, but I like the hood, especially how it turned out in this shot. Anyway, I only saw this car because I spent a lot of time waiting around Wheeler Hall, just so I could lose after three more hands.

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Curious Incident is written as if its autistic narrator is the author. Most of what I know about autism is from reading Blink, so I know next to nothing. In addition to shaping the actions and relationships among the characters, this premise affects the structure of the book significantly. For example, the chapters numbered by prime numbers, sentences are constructed in a subject-verb manner, there are no similes, only occasional metaphors. It actually feels like the way I would write the first draft of a book where I’d get my ideas down on paper. Later revisions would add more descriptors and vary the sentence structure.

Curious Incident is a fast read that provides insight into how an autistic person processes information. The plot is generally a good one, and there’s even a mathematical proof in the appendix, if you like that sort of thing.

For information on autism see: Autism Society of America

The comic Adam@Home has been running a series of “Things We’d Like to See” this week. Author Brian Bassett has hit on a couple of things that I’d certainly like to see pertaining to rules of the road:

Odie, Melissa, and I were discussing the merits of TiVo the other day, and Odie pointed out that you don’t have to pay a monthly fee for DVR technology. I found this do-it-yourself model via BoingBoing. Generally satisfied with my duct tape wallet, maybe this will be my next project.

MakeZine.com: Free TiVo: Build a Better DVR out of an Old PC

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