Wednesday, July 29, 2015

More idle thoughts

That was quite the commercial. Some Big Pharma company is advertising a pill that will cause "less major bleeding" than the product their competitor offers. Evidently, they're telling you you're going to hemorrhage if you start popping either pills, but not as much if you take their brand. Um.... I think I'll pass.

Sound the trumpets. Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers finally chalked up a win. Nevermind it took over a hundred games into the season for it to happen. And also nevermind that, considering Verlander's $28 million salary this year, the Tigers have paid $20 million or so for a single victory from the Fastball Flakes man. And let's ignore the fact the Tigers lost Verlander's first seven starts before squeaking by on a 2-1 win in his latest.  He's even got his ERA under 5.00 -- barely. It's at least something. Here's a question: You're a GM from another team and the trade deadline is a day away. Would you be interested in Verlander? Gonna cost you a million dollars every time he takes the mound.

Interesting that British Open champion Zach Johnson and Tiger Woods are both 39 years old. One is on top of the world having just won another major championship. The other has been relegated to little more than a ceremonial golfer, ala Tom Watson in recent years.

Ron "Jaws" Jaworski has Detroit Lions QB Matthew Stafford ranked #12 amongst all 32 NFL starting quarterbacks. Last year he was #16. Smack dab in the middle of the pack. Perhaps getting to the playoffs bumped him up a few spots. But is he really any better? Opinions vary.

Stafford certainly has a strong throwing arm. Having Calvin "Megatron" Johnson as a go-to guy hasn't hurt his stats either (though it's led to Johnson taking a beating over the years). Indeed, Stafford has thrown for over 5000 yards in a single season, a rare accomplishment.

Though he's gotten past his former "China Doll" personna, Stafford has his down sides as well. He's hardly mobile and sometimes makes poor decisions when under pressure. Instead of throwing the ball away on a play that isn't there -- he'll often try to force it. This leads to turnovers, be it Stafford fumbling while being sacked or throwing interceptions. Stafford being able to throw the football 70 yards downfield means little unless one of his receivers can haul it in. That's like a major league pitcher being able to throw 102 MPH fastballs to opposing hitters. If he can't find the strike zone it doesn't matter.

What's that? They found a piece of a wing that might have come from that Malaysian airliner that's been missing for a year and a half? Thousands of miles away from its last known location? You know what this means. Another month of Anderson Cooper and his ilk with their merry bands of "experts" hashing and rehashing ad nauseum every plausible theory -- again -- though they know nothing. And like Jimmy Hoffa, what difference does it make if they ever find the damn plane or bodies anyway? They still won't know what happened, but they'll spend countless millions moving skeletons from one place to another. How dumb is that?

Yeah, I know. Almost as dumb as this post. But hey, yours truly had a rough day. The blower motor in the furnace went kaput -- hence no AC during a heat wave -- and one of my beloved toy yorkies finally caught up to Mr. Squirrel. Turns out, Mr. Squirrel fought back. Off to the vet to have my son patched up. Cha-ching and cha-ching. It's difficult to write innovative stuff when one is preoccupied with the thought of a ramen noodle only diet in the foreseeable future.



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