June 21, 2005

  •  Two things....

    One, today is the first day of summer.  Technically.

    Well, lah di dah dah.  Big whoop.  That's the trouble with both
    the winter and summer soltices....by the time they actually get here,
    it's been-there-done-that.  Summer is, like, such old news around
    here.  It's been hot for awhile now.  June 21st is toward the
    middle of the summer, for crying out loud.  In a few weeks the Hallmark Christmas ornaments will be out and back-to-school sales will be in full swing.  How is today the beginning of summer?

    Two, what is up with internet baseball player info sites?  There's
    some player named Vladimir Guerrero, which fascinated me.  What an
    unusual pairing of names!  Vladimir + Guerrero.  Hmmmm. 
    Odd.  Turning my powerful intellect (hehehe) onto it, I deduced he
    must be of Cuban extraction, what with the Soviet Union having such a
    long history in Cuba, after all.  So I thought I'd do a bit of
    research to see if I'd deduced correctly.

    Hah.  The only thing these dumb sites talk about is his batting average, blah blah blah.  Who cares?  Where was he born, or at least his family born? 

    And as an addendum to the promised two things, let me say that dull and
    boring as the television commentators are for professional baseball
    games, they pale in comparison to the dullness and boringness of the
    commentators - who never shut up
    for one second - for the collegiate "world series".  They've
    attained depths of inanity and paucity of content the pros can only
    envy.

Comments (2)

  • This is why Google still rules:

    http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player.jsp?player_id=115223

    I suspect a small but steady number of people have emigrated from snowy, bleak Russia to warm, sunny spots like the Dominican Republic over the years. I'd even think it less likely they'd go to Cuba than anywhere else voluntarily, though, because why go from one Communist hell-hole to another? And if they were somehow Soviet operatives transplanted to Cuba to do government work, I suspect intermarriage wouldn't have been terribly likely. So probably somehow some lady of Russian heritage wound up in DR and named her son Vladimir.

    Also, there are lots of Russians in South America, I believe, so someone may have emigrated north to DR.

    It is an interesting name, though, isn't it? Reminds me of a minor character in one of the Aubrey/Maturin books, a Peruvian named Don Bernardo O'Higgins.

  • Jane strikes again!

    Wait. This is baseball. That won't work.

    Jane hits another one outta the park!

    You know you're hot stuff when your home country declares a national holiday because you're named MVP.

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