Stuck in the parking lot of Irvine Meadows. No post tonight.

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The Happiest Place On Earth

We're Talkin' Baseball...

With the trade deadline coming up tomorrow, it seemed like a good time to run down some of the happenings on and off the diamond.

Dodgers beat Cards!  I knew this four game set was going to be a nightmare when I saw it on the schedule but I had no idea it'd be this bad.  Blown saves, extended rain delays, extra innings, shutouts.  Good grief, Charlie Brown.  Thankfully they managed to scrape out one win tonight but the pitching staff and offense have both managed to fall asleep at the same time.

Speaking of the pitching staff - the Dodgers made a deal today, sending out two minor leaguers for Orioles closer George Sherrill who is a pitcher I've seen described today as "death on left handed hitters."  The bullpen looks to be gaining some strength back with the return of Kuo and the addition of Sherrill.  It doesn't mean that Torre won't manage to overwork them in the two months left and make them useless but let's hope for the best.  I wouldn't be opposed to seeing another 'pen arm picked up if the price is right.

Still no starter added though which makes me nervous.  I'm fine with Bills, Kershaw, Kuroda, and Wolf.  I truly am.  Sure, I'd love a Cliff Lee or Halladay to lead the pack but I'm really fine without them.  I know, I know.  Everyone wants the Dodgers to have an "ace" but honestly, how many teams have a legit ace starter leading the way?  Besides if Bills is half of an ace and Kershaw is half of an ace... ?  Both of those guys have ace stuff and the potential to be an ace on any given night.  I think both are showing signs of fatigue though which worries me.  What I'd like to see though is one more back of the rotation guys.  Schmidt doesn't appear to be the answer.  Neither does Weaver [although he looks good every once in a while.]  James McDonald?  Scott Elbert?  Maybe.  But neither of them can get settled in that spot before they get yanked out of it.  Who is out there?  No clue.

In addition to all the trade deadline madness, of course there was the Manny story today.  I think I've lost the ability to care.  I officially have PED story fatigue.  I'm just going to assume that everyone from pre-2003 was probably taking something and deal with it.  I'm not sure there are any names left that could come out on that list that would surprise me.  Let's just deal with the people testing positive now and not worry about who tested positive six years ago.

I'll be home some of the day tomorrow so if the Dodgers manage to make any more moves, I might drop in with some comments.

In the meantime... go Blue!

A Shit Ton Of Stuff

Tiffani Thiessen is Busy from Tiffani Thiessen

The End Of An Era Is Upon Us

If the Dodgers first 3-game losing streak of the season wasn't enough to be bummed about, the news broke today that legendary Hall of Fame announcer Vin Scully plans to announce in 2010 and then hang 'em up.

Part of me is glad to have that date out there because the man deserves the rest.

Part of me is terrified because the Dodgers have yet to find anyone who comes close to lacing Vinny's proverbial boots in the booth.

And part of me is sad because I just can't imagine a historic Dodger moment going down without Vinny's voice there to call it.

It's the end of an era upon us, folks... just about fifteen months away.

Hot And Cold

I still can't decide if I'm going to like it or not but with just a week or so to go until the G.I. Joe movie finally hits the big screen, they've done a pretty good job lately of getting my interest back up. A couple of decent reviews from the boys at AICN have me leaning towards wanting to see it after months of bad news had me leaning the other way.

They released this video to further hype. Not sure it succeeded but...

OC Fair 2009: A Day In Photos

Finally got my photos from yesterday on the computer so I thought I'd share a batch of them.  Enjoy!

This is the first thing I saw when I got out of the car.  I'd never ride the damn thing [I hate Ferris Wheels!] but it's a pretty imposing sight when you first walk in.

"And they called it... puppy looooooove"

The sheep seemed absolutely terrified when someone got in their pen, all herding up in a pile like this.  That or someone lost their keys and everyone was pitching in.  One or the other.

"By day, I'm just your normal everyday farm animal.  But by night..."

"I AM EL DANDY!  FAMED LUCHADOR!"

Poor guy.  I never really thought sheep and goats and the like were personable animals but these guys really seemed like they were almost like pets.

"What?!  The Dodgers are letting Jason Schmidt pitch again?!"

All together now... "Awwwwww!"

The rabbits had it the worst of any animals I saw all day.  Some of those cages weren't any bigger than a shoebox.  

This was the cutest little guy.  He kept sniffing the bars when I moved the camera closer so I got some really cool closeups.  Damn bars get in the way though.

A moment before this shot, the little guy tried to stand on the other one to reach the feed bag but fell flat. I guess this was good enough for him though.

I swear, for the first few seconds, I thought this pig was dead (swine flu!).  All the pigs just looked exhausted, sprawled out and sleeping.  Don't worry - I didn't lay on the ground next to the pig for this one but the camera did get lowered quite a bit for it.

A Dodger pig!  AY!  Save the Lasorda jokes, jackass!

Speaking of pigs... here's the pulled pork sandwich I had for lunch.  I didn't even realize I ate pulled pork after looking at pigs until I just wrote that.  Egads, that's awkward.  Oh, and large beer = $9.  Painful but oh-so-nice on a warm day.

Giant sand sculpture of Weird Al's head.  No, we didn't go the 3-D showing of Al's Brain and yes, this is a very close second for most disturbing photo I've seen this week.  First place of course goes to the Twilight Moms.

I thought this was a cool shot.  I need to play with the coloring a little bit when I get some time.  Oh, and those gondolas look like the most potentially deadly things I've seen in ages.

Ah yes.  Fair food.  The quickest way to a stomachache.  I successfully avoided the plethora of fried foods that sabotage all fair trips.  Last year, we ate corn dogs and some horrific Australian ranch fries thing where they cut big slabs of potato, deep fry them, and serve them with ranch and liquid cheese.  The mere sight of those this year made me feel sick all over again.  My mom thought the Deep Fried Avocados might not be bad.  I couldn't bear the thought of eating anything from this "menu."

Of course, since I had a photo on exhibit in the Visual Arts area, that was the main reason we were attending this year.  I knew I hadn't won anything but I still wanted to see it on display and check out some of the others.  I felt weird taking photos of other people's photos - although there were some fantastic pictures and anyone who goes to the Fair should spend plenty of time checking them out - so I snapped a few of pieces of artwork that I liked.

And of course, I had no qualms about taking a photo of my photo.  I'm still pretty proud of it even though there were no less than 3 peacock photos within a fifteen foot radius of each other including one that looked almost identical.  

Thank you, thank you.  Hold your applause.  No, no, really.  Okay, fine.  Anyone who wants to buy a print of it, let me know!  I'm a not-so-starving, non-college student who could really use the money!

When rides collide!  Well, not literally but at a Fair, would you be surprised?  God damn carnies!

And lastly, the award for Worst Sounding Fair Food goes to...

Ugh.

We had a fun time in our few hours there but we were very glad to be heading home as the crowds got larger as the day went on.

Besides, we got in a game of the BSG board game last night to boot so that's well worth cutting a Fair day short, you know?