Otters and Beckett

We went to the coast. We almost got lost many times trying to find Shelter Cove. We saw an otter. Otters are way cool.

While I was away, Josh Beckett beat Jake Peavy. Now thats way cool too.

New TIG Review

Here's a fun new TIG review ... enjoy!

The Veils - Nux Vomica

International travel ahoy!

So I finally made all my travel arrangements to go to Cologne, Germany for the Goldschmidt 2007 meeting (where I will be talking on the timescales of crystallization in rhyolite magmas!) Anyway, it took me a while (because I get obsessed with finding the perfect flights) and I will be traveling:

Sacramento to Atlanta to Dusseldorf to Berlin to Helsinki to Munich to Cologne to Dusseldorf to Paris to Atlanta to Sacramento.

Indeed. The Helsinki leg is for 4 days as a vacation of sorts. Cologne is for the meeting. I'm sure I'll have loads of things to say about my first (yes, first) trip to the continent.

Oh yes, two new TIG reviews:
Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond
Voxtrot - Voxtrot


And the Red Sox won (the fasten seat belt sign has been turned off) 10-2 today, with my new favorite Sox Dustin Pedroia going 5 for 5 with 5 RBI. Plucky little Woodland native!

Red Sox Flight 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have noticed I've put the seat beat sign back on. We'll be experience some light to intermediate chop for the next hundred miles, so for you safety and for those around you, please return to your seat and fasten your seatbelt. Thank you.

World Travel

So last night I was looking for tickets to fly to Germany this summer for a meeting and I said to Susan "Boy, wouldn't it be great if there was a website that allowed you to look at a map of a region and see what places would be cheapest to fly to." Lo and behold, there is such a thing. It is kind of cool to peruse just to see the ridiculousness of airfares in general ... and the fact that apparently the cheapest place in Europe to fly these days from Sacramento is Cologne, Germany, my very destination.

Enjoy: Fare Compare Maps

Paris: Back in Jail

My reaction to Paris being dragged screaming out of the courtroom and back to jail? "How delightful!"

New TIG review:
Ghost Stories - Quixoticism

Paris isn't in jail anymore.

I'm very disappointed that Paris Hilton was released from jail today after 3 days (of her already reduced 23 days) because she was having "psychological" problems, i.e., she didn't like being in jail. Well tough. Maybe we should just release everyone who doesn't like being in jail. This is why this country is going downhill fast because we let rich folks - be they celebrities or business types - do whatever they want. Bah!

And the Red Sox lost, yet again. Bah!

Whatever

The Red Sox got shut-out for 6 innings by former Sox farmhand Lenny DiNardo whose stellar line included 6 BB and 0K. Huh?

A new TIG review!
Brakes - The Beatific Vision

Red Sox 4, Oakland 5

I was in attendance last night for the Red Sox 11 inning loss to the A's in Oakland. It was a tough game for the team after playing three long games against the Yankees in Boston and then flying out last Sunday night to get to Oakland for Monday's game. Heck, Papelbon and Okajima were both unavailable and 4 of the Sox regular starters were AWOL from the starting lineup (Varitek, Lowell, Crisp & Lugo), so the fact that after 9 innings, the game was tied 4-4, it seemed like a little bit of a miracle. This was magnified by the fact that the starters were Oakland ace and AL ERA leader Dan Haren vs. AL Weirdness leader Julian Tavarez. A few observations from the game:

1 - Julian Tavarez is a perfectly serviceable 5th starter - he did a good job at getting ahead of many hitters, but couldn't put them away, especially pesky Mark Ellis.
2 - Brendan Donnelly looked pretty sharp for a while ... Joel Piniero, on the other hand, did not.
3 - J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo look completely lost at the plate - they swung at garbage last night - what is their deal?
4 - Wily Mo went from goat to almost hero, trading some fielding gaffes for a big (I mean HUGE) HR and the tying single in the 9th. He'll get better if he can get more playing time.
5 - The A's really have no bullpen.

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And hey, here are two more TIG Reviews

Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

Torre is a sad bastard

I think I'm going to call Joe Torre "Dead Dog" from now on because he looks like someone killed his dog every time they show him in the dugout.

The odd 2007 Red Sox

So it's the 4th inning in today's Sox-Yankees game and its tied 1-1. The Yankers scored on a Melky HR but the Red Sox scored on a Wily Mo double, a Crisp sac bunt and a Lugo groundout. Weird, those runnin' Sox? There is a also an old, fat man spraying water on all the Yankees players in the dugout and the pressbox is full of nerds with laptops - which I suppose isn't surprising. Maybe I'll update some more later on, but Curt looks OK so far.

Review Update

Here's a pile of new(ish) reviews

The Earlies - The Enemy Chorus
The Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists - Living with the Living
Amon Tobin - Foley Room
Clint Mansell, the Kronos Quartet & Mogwai - Original Soundtrack to the Fountain
Dntel - Dumb Luck
The Long Blondes - Someone to Drive You Home

I also a feed of the last 3 postings to my daily TIG column, iPod Roulette, the resurrected (and now consistent) Shuffle of the Day. Look in the upper right hand corner for a daily dose of iPod randomness. I also added a link to the TIG Imagi-Blog feed where you can find me posting (just look for Erik Gonzalez).
Enjoy!

Wow, an even longer pause

Alright, yes, I've neglected the blog for a while. May was a very busy month, and as I mentioned before, most of my blogging energy has been focused to Three Imaginary Girls. However, I'm going to try to be a little more diligent here, focusing back on science & baseball. Yeah! If you're curious what I've been busy with, here it is: 1 NSF Proposal on zircon that involved collecting a whole bunch of data before writing; 1 Final submission of a paper to Bulletin of Volcanology - finally accepted for publication!; 1 massive editing-fest for another paper that will be headed for a special volume being published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh; 1 proposal to teach a research seminar on "Volcanoes and Human Culture" and 1 day (a solid 24 hours) of running samples on the SHRIMP-RG at Stanford. Yeah, a little busy. In fact, I finally got back to reviewing CDs only this week after about a month of nothing. I'll try to compile a list of reviews since I last listed a review and post that in a bit.

Anyway, anybody notice that the Red Sox are an MLB best 36-16, with a 10 game lead on the second place (wait for it) Baltimore Orioles (?!) and a mere 13.5 games up on the (wait for it) last place New York Yankees? Go figure. It's been one of the strangest seasons to be a Red Sox fan in a long time ... and they're 20 games over .500 with no hitting from J.D. Drew (.226 AVE), Julio Lugo (.291 OBP), Coco Crisp (.229 AVE) and only so-so output from Manny and Big Papi. Heck, Mike Lowell has the team lead in HR with 10, yet somehow the team has one of the best offenses in the league. And the pitching has been sharp too, even with Matsuzaka's ups and downs. Crazy!

The Long Pause

Sorry I haven't been adding much here. A lot of my blogging has moved to Three Imaginary Girlsunder my Erik Gonzalez nom de plume. I've just been busy as all heck between lab work, interviewing, eating, sleeping, you know, all that fun stuff. I'll try to be more diligent, but if not, please be sure to check out my daily column on TIG, iPod Roulette...

Being sick sucks

This is the second weekend I've spent being sacked out sick. This weekend it is mostly confined to my head and I can't really hear out of my left ear. Argh.

Anyway, I've been watching some broadcast TV and it worries me. Amongst the products advertised are:
- Kids shoes that have an air pocket under the heel that when you step down, it pushed air through a tube down the shoe and the air comes out between the toes.\
- Kids shoes with a single strap to put them on that are tauted as "the easiest shoe to put on! it's so cool!"
- Gatorade AM, that comes in "new morning flavors to get the most of your morning workout."

Baffled. Baffled.

Besuboro!

For those of you who enjoy very bizarre statements, enjoy this:

Ichiro Suzuki (OF Seattle) on facing fellow countryman Daisuke Matsuzaka (SP Boston) tomorrow:

"I hope he arouses the fire that's dormant in the innermost recesses of my soul."

Indeed!

The Illness

Well I've spent most of the weekend (and today) being quite ill, sleeping something like 41 hours. Not sure what knocking me down, but my away message says it best: "Erik feels like he's been hit by two buses that were very angry with him."

In other news, here are new TIG reviews
!!! - Myth Takes
Dalek - Abandoned Language

And we'll see if this sticks, but my iPod top 10 will move here.

Top 10 ...

Things get a little less busy for me now, so that's good.
I'm bringing my iBook into the Apple Store tonight to see if it needs repairs. Woo!

Not much to offer right now beyond my current iPod Top 10. A lot of turnover this week.
10 Bomb. Repeat. Bomb. (1954) - Ted Leo & the Pharmacists
9 Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem
8 Yeah, Oh Yeah (Live) - Tullycraft
7 You Don't Want Yr Nails Done - Panther
6 In the Morning - Junior Boys
5 Paragraphs Relentless - Dalek
4 Scenic World - Beirut
3 Made of Steam - Dengue Fever
2 The Prayer - Bloc Party
1 Did I Step On Your Trumpet? - Danielson

Argh to academics

I'm beginning to wonder if a career is academics is just constant rejection. Rejected from faculty searches, rejected from fellowships, rejected from grant proposals, rejected from paper submissions. Heck, I think I'm 0-for-50 for job applications (well, I guess I do have my current job) but otherwise I look like the career batting average of a AL pitcher. Do I have to crack some secret club code or invent cold fusion to get a job? Maddening I say, maddening.

Opening Day!

It's Red Sox Opening Day!

Of course, as I type, the Sox are losing to the mighty Gil Meche & the Royals 5-1. Maybe the Sox should have spent that ~$50M on Meche instead of Matsuzaka (it's Schilling starting today though). Um, maybe not.

My life has been subsumed lately by (a) labwork and (b) fixing my iBook. Both endeavors have been fairly unsuccessful so far. Bah!