THIS & THAT XI

          So some teams might play 47 games and other teams might play 58 games or 52 games?  I love that part.  I also love the way the league-wide schedule seems to change every day.  Somewhere in September, I think there's a team that has to play 4 doubleheaders in 6 days,  Hey, let's play ten!  Then there's the utterly amoral, random nature of the scheduling and re-scheduling.  The Phillies had a week off without having a single player test positive, just because they played a team that bought chicken wings at a strip club, or something.  And when the infected, though not actually sick, Marlins had to take that quarantined bus ride from Philly back to Miami, I couldn't help imagining the entire bus getting lost and vanishing in an eerie fog approaching Zabriskie Point in California.

          And there's yet another ghost team---the exiled Toronto Blue Jays, banned from their homeland by Prime Minister Justin Blackface.  If they win the AL, will we play the World Freaking Series in a minor league ballpark in Buffalo???

          Then, of course, there's the guys (the "Phandemic Krew"), who stand outside the gates at Phillies games chanting and setting off airhorns to annoy the visiting teams, and who succeeded so thoroughly that Yankee Manager Aaron Boone complained to the umpires about them.  "Sorry, Mr. Boone," he was told, "we don't have any jurisdiction out there."

          This might turn out to be my favorite baseball season of all time.

*

         Department of Oddball German Words That Express a Complex Emotional State.  "Sturmfrei" (literal translation:"storm-free"), is the feeling of being home alone because parents, roommates, etc., are gone for the day, or the weekend, or whatever. 

*

          I’m far from an insider, but I get the sense there is increasing pressure among Democrats to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.  They seem confident they can win the White House, but Biden’s obvious flaws are a growing concern.

*

          European pop music is the most lifeless drivel in the entire world of music, and it has not improved for at least fifty years.  The primary reason for this is the Eurovision Song Contest, of which there have now been 64 editions, The quest to construct the “perfect” Europop tune and win the prize for God and country has created a musical mini-industry so devoid of emotion, intellect, and innovation that no one other than a Eurovision junkie would ever listen to it.

          The degenerate nature of the process is illustrated by the sad fact that the best song ever produced by the Eurovision contest is still “Waterloo” by ABBA.

*

          You know how “Make-a-Size” paper towels come with extra perforations so you can tear off a smaller towel or a larger one, depending on your need?

          Why don’t they do that with toilet paper?

*

          “Despite their ubiquity and pivotal role in the haptic experience of architecture, door handles remain oddly under-documented.”

          --- Edwin Heathcote

               Points of Contact---A Short History of Door Handles

*

          “For as long as there have been doors, there have been door handles.”

          ---Ditto

*

          In the search for an upside to the legal requirement that I wear a mask for (almost) the entire time I am at work, there is this:  after a snack or a lunch, there is no longer any need to wipe the food off my face.  I just slip the mask back on and go back to work.  I only have to clean off the grease and jelly and crumbs once a day.  Saves a lot of time.

Copyright2020MichaelKubacki