Be a Simple Kind of Man

I mean really simple. Like Forrest Gump simple.

It's not a moral thing. It's not a return to simpler times thing. It's not a romantic view of rural America thing.

It's an easily amused kind of thing, like the Nirvana song.



I'm fairly exited and entertained by Christmas lights. I would also love it do death if I could get my hands on some neon signs. Such things would leave me highly contented with life. Once my pitchers mound is completed I will have two of the three things on my life-checklist. Not of goals necessarily, but more on a lifestyle level.

I think Vegas would leave me in a trance. I could care less about the gambling. Think of all the lights! NEON! COLORED! FLASHING! ALL THREE IN ONE!!!!!


One of the things to see in the world in my opinion the Neon Boneyard, in Las Vegas.

Pray to God I Never Get a Time Machine

What would you do if you had a Time Machine.

Stop atrocities? Warn relatives about future negative events? Save lives in general?

Wait a second, I'm think I may be overestimating the selflessness of the general population. It's more likely that depending on what era is gone back to that person x is going to either invest or pull their money out of something.

First things first, before I went to see the Colssus of Rhodes, Woodstock, or the Great Molasses Flood of Boston, I would probably frequent some more...infamous occurences.

And for the purposes of this post I'm not going to be intervening in anything. Kind of like the way those producers of nature films never help a wounded seagull or hide lion or cheetah cubs from a dominant male who is coming to devour them.

I think I would have to go see Gacy's crawlspace, when it was open for business of course. I would also definantly hit up that time Michael Richards deemed it prudent to for reasons unknown, deliver some highly experimental comedy. A Texas school book depository in 1963 would also be on my list, primarily because there's a good chance no one will be in it by the name of Oswald.

I would go to concerts definantly. I would have to see Bill Hicks and 1973 Pink Floyd show. Would the money I spent be taken out of my bank account in the present?

NOVA

Let me tell you a little bit about sleep.

I like sleep. I do as much as it possible.

But for a long time the utility of sleep has been a question that Science has never fully answered. Different animals seem to need variant levels of sleep. Dolphins seemed to never sleep, until research showed that they were capable of sleeping with one side of their brain awake.

Ducks do the same thing. Watch a duck sleep more closely sometime. On at least one individual in the group you will see the eye facing away from the inside of the group of sleeping ducks intermittently open and close. That side of the brain is partially awake as the other, and always closed eye, is fully asleep. You will know when the duck has hit REM (rapid eye movement) sleep because it's posture will slack.

But the question at hand. Why sleep at all? No definitive answers exist. The common sense one, rest, is not quite sufficient. What is it about the brain wave activity, which the most marked change in our body during sleep, that enhances the rest experienced during sleep?

The logical inference is that sleep is much more for our brain than for our bodies.

And recent the results of recently performed research points in that directions.

A Scientist researching sleep at MIT hooked up electrodes to the brains of mice. Directly hard wired the suckers.



He then put the mice through a maze in search of cheese. The entire time each mouse was in the maze a constant stream of signals was propagated from the brain of the test mouse up through the electrodes and to a receiving unit which translated each signal pattern into a series of dots creating a pixelated image of the electrical activity of the mouse's brain. A snapshot, if you will.

Every time the mouse was at a given point in the maze a similar pattern of dots emerged on the machine. Each time a mouse found cheese similar patterns would appear. This consistency in electrical output allowed scientists to determine where in the maze a mouse was without even needing to see the mouse.

Essentially they could literally read its mind. Like braille.


Of course, at some point the mice would go to sleep. And what emerged was very intriguing.

For the first 10 minutes of sleep there would be a random cycling of dot images that would appear, disappear and re-appear. Then the same pattern would be run in reverse order, and repeated in forward order.

The repeated images and image sequences corresponded directly to the images sent to the machine by each mouse when it was in the maze. Some images corresponded to given areas of the maze, some sequences were the ones that yielded no cheese, and others were replays of the sequence of movements the mouse made when it was successful in finding food.

Essentially during the initial stages of sleep the brains of the test mice were going over the new lessons of the day and it's various experiences. The memories were edited and rehearsed.

The implication is that sleep serves as a method for our brains to rehearse and imprint vital functions and process new information.

And the physical test data in humans echoes the results obtained from the mice.

It would be unethical to hardwire a human being and capture his thoughts. Such are the moral limitations of science. But like a mouse we are mammals. Our brain organization is similar like our functional DNA.

As such it is not a stretch to assume similarities in the chemical architecture of our brains.

People do better on certain diagnostic tests after a night of sleep. A famous test involves typing an identical series of letters and numbers before and after 8 hours of sleep. The average subject increases his performance speed by 50%.

Think baseball, football, singing, math etc, any of these activities, if they are indicated to the brain to be desired as attained skills, may just be imprinted in us during sleep.

So don't slack off on sleeping.

Carlos Zambrano is going to Shoot Someone (well, not really)

Carlos Zambrano is crazy and I don't mean the good kind of crazy. I mean the kind of crazy that's not conducive to athleticism. It's not intensity, it's insanity.

Carlos and the Cubs came to Atlanta in the beginning of April, and with it they brought his very special brand of dealing with adversity. Complete and total emotional implosion. Not the crying kind, the hulk smash kind.

Hulk smash however is not conducive to being an effective pitcher. I reference to demeanor's of Greg Maddux or Mariano Rivera. Serious, intense, but composed.

So that's why I knew after Chipper Jones and Brian Mccann reached on bloop hits, and the Braves young stud was on deck, it was "about to get good".

I found it extremely humorous when Jason Heyward got to take his first big league cuts against a very...aggravated Carlos Zambrano.

First Pitch: 94 mph up and in
Second Pitch: 94 mph up and in
Thrid pitch: 93 mph down and out over the plate. Heyward offers.

Result: Holy Shit



I'm half surprised that Zambrano didn't follow Heyward around the bases screaming at him and demanding a rematch.

Heyward must have been given the scouting book on hitting Zambrano. The book on Zambrano is a little different from most pitchers. I happen to have obtained a copy from an unnamed professional scout.

1. Don't look him in the eye
2. Avoid red colors
3. Don't turn your back to him under any circumstances

Maybe I'm a Downer But...

I would like to take a moment and discuss the practice of expert picks and conventional wisdom in the field of predicting sports outcomes.

I am a huge fan of underdogs. I love nothing more than when it's said by a layman or by an expert that a given team "doesn't have a chance".

The NCAA tournament generally does not let me down in giving these nice folks to eat their words.

Here's the expert picks on this years NCAA tournament:

7 of 12 had ONE team in the final four

Four went with West Virginia, and three with Duke. No analyst had two of their selected teams make it into the final four of the tournament.

Now I know that's harsh to chide them for not having more success in a field of 64 teams, but all I heard this year was that the field was weak and the big schools from major conferences would have easy pickings. Fat lot of truth that turned out to be.

Maybe I'm just ticked the the University of Illinois did not make the tournament.

Yeah that's probably it.

I like Oliver Stone films in general. Talk Radio, JFK, Nixon, Natural Born Killers, Wall Street etc.

The Stone films I like, I really like.

Stone films I'm neutral over include some of his more popular entrees. Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon, W, and Any Given Sunday.

I recently watched the 1988 Stone film entitled Talk Radio.

Talk Radio is a fantastic exploration into the rise and dynamics of talk radio. In particular the motives and psychology of the controversial, opinionated, and abrasive hosts.



Eric Borgosian is fantastic as the up and coming Barry Champlain. The conflict between the on air persona's and the off-air human being is explored. In some cases, like Rush Limbaugh however, I'm not sure there is actually much of a difference between the person I hear on the radio and the person outside of the studio.

I like the portrayal of callers who constantly listen to the show but profess a passionate hatred for the host. They say he should be off the radio. His ideas are incendiary to them. They don't change the station because deep down they don't want to.

NEW PROSPECT

Well, I have another sleeper fantasy pick.

Mat Latos, the big right handed pitcher for the San Diego Padres, has been picked to be the team's fifth starter.





I like his big frame (6'5 230lbs) and big fastball which he throws with exceptional control.

I don't like something I see in this picture however. Notice that his front foot has landed but his hips have not begun to rotate towards the catcher. I would feel more confident in his ability to maintain his plus stuff and avoid injury if he rotated his hips earlier and incorporated his lower half more into his delivery of the baseball.

But maybe his large frame will compensate and it won't be a factor.

Additionally, the Padres would seem to have an affinity for TALL pitchers.

See Chris Young, a modest 6'10. And the 6'6 Jon Garland.