Too little, too late?

Well, what every Angels fan has wanted all season finally happened on Friday as Bill Stoneman finally got the stones to send down Jeff Weaver and bring up STUD minor league pitcher Jared Weaver.

Ever since the World Series win in 2002, everyone has sort of perceived Bill Stoneman to be a golden-boy, but ever since, through MULTIPLE stoopid moves, he's come down to earth. I hated in in the late 90's and I still don't like him today. Letting Troy Glaus go was a mistake, and I don't just say that because he was my favorite player. Glaus was only one year removed from his Lasik and before the knee injury was hitting the snot out of the ball. Stoneman got trigger happy and as a result, made two mistakes at once. He let Glaus go and in the process, made Chone Figgins the defacto third-baseman. I love Figgins and he is a pure catalyst for this team. But he was a perfect role player. The club had the ability to start him every day somewhere, whether at DH or filling in to give anyone else a day off.

Then he let Bengie Molina get away last year. The better Napoli develops, the less this one is going to hurt, but really that's just dumb luck for Stoneman. The biggest clutch-hitter on the team and the leader of the "Latino Half" of the club, Molina was not resigned because Stoneman didn't find him worth the cost when he had a solid defensive catcher in Jose Molina and he also had.....Josh Paul. Well Paul turned into a big-ole bust, the likes of which haven't been seen since Justin Bauchman. Napoli got called up and has been incredible, but Stoneman gets ZERO credit for that one.

And then the team was looking for another bat over the past month, which they desperatley need and apparently, the cost was too high for Stoneman to pull the trigger on trading prospects. I'm sorry, but other than Jared Weaver, there are three other starters at Salt Lake who are valuable. Stoneman was probably demanding that Jeff Weaver be part of any deals, and nobody wants to touch that plague. Now we get NOTHING for him, no power hitter, but a stronger rotation? As long as Colon can get back into form (I give him 5 starts before I give up hope/2 down, three to go), we'll be ok with pitching and the same rotation (Weaver, Colon, Escobar, Lackey, Santana) should be in one piece next season, and that's pretty damn good. a #1 guy, two young potential #1 guys, and two solid #2/3 guys in Kelvin and Lackey.

But without a deal for a bat, it's too little too late for this season. Pack it in. Let the young guys (Morales, Napoli, Murphy, Kendrick) continue to get experience at the big league level. That will only help them out for next year and the years to come. All four of them were rushed to the show, but now that they are here, let them get their AB's.

And one more note to Stoned-man: Since we're going to phone in the rest of the year anyway, isn't it time to dump JC Romero and let JONATHAN ROUWENHORST get up to the show, too!?!?! Between him and Esteban Yan, you're 0-for-2 on signing lefty relief. Give your own guy a shot now!

The Nerd Is Still Alive

The nerdy part of me that loves Weird Al Yankovic, I don't think, will ever die. He finally has a new album coming out later this year (it's been three years) and he has released the first single, a James Blunt paroditty called "You're Pitiful".

Check it out HERE.

Monday Random Ten

Still alive and kicking in Eugene...working my tail off right now...

1. Creep - Radiohead from Pablo Honey
2. Fuel - Tom Wuest from WOW Worship: Green
3. Welcome to the Machine - Pink Floyd from Wish You Were Here
4. Anna Begins - Counting Crows from August and Everything After
5. Crash Into Me - Dave Matthews Band from Crash
6. Questions - Plankeye from The Spark
7. Damn - Matchbox 20 from Yourself or Someone Like You
8. Say Goodbye to Hollywood - Billy Joel from The Essential Billy Joel
9. Dead - They Might Be Giants from Flood
10. Happy Jack - The Who from The Ultimate Collection

Greetings from the other side of the world

Well, it's just Eugene, but without my family, it sure feels like the other side of the planet! I'm safe and sound in Oregon, just finishing up my first day of work. Then it's back to my 400-square foot apt. to set up shop and watch the basketball game (fortunately, ABC is one of the two stations that I get reception for!).

Please continue to pray for us. For sanity while we are apart and for our darn house to sell quickly!!! We just lowered the price, yet again.

Another Story...

I almost forgot the funniest thing that ever happened in the Brant days! File this under boys-will-be-boys:

One night after a concert at Red Hill Lutheran, we were fooling around in the parking lot with a flat rolling dolly, 'cause we were loading equipment into cars and such (remember, I was a first-class roadie back then). Someone came up with the brilliant idea of doing a JackAss style stunt where someone goes Indiana Jones and jumps into the side of a Van, off of the Dolly, which was going at a high rate of speed.

I was the idiot who volunteered to try the stunt. So I get on the dolly, in position to make the jump and they push me towards the van. As I get closer I begin to realize "If I push off of this dolly to jump, it will come out from under me and I will eat it straight into the pavement." So I froze up and ended up careening right into the side of the van. Somehow with how my leg hit the side of the van, I got a puncture wound on my leg. It didn't bleed or anything, but you could see about two millimeters down into my knee. It was pretty cool.

I still have the scar from it!

Long Live Holy Cow/The Glovers/MALICIDE!!!

I just reconnected with one of my best friends from High School, Brant Debow (Blog link on the right). Brant and I became friends through the quasi-retarded "christian club" at Woodbridge High School, when he was a senior and I was a freshman. I quickly became his lackey/hanger-on/roadie for his glam/metal band "Malicide". We became really good friends and I got to know a whole new group of people and started going to a second church (Red Hill Lutheran). I got in the most trouble of my life with him, too. We had gone to a concert (Focused, Unashamed, Dog Baby, etc.) down in southern OC and I was supposed to be home by midnight. Well, we were kinda-sorta working the show and kinda-sorta stayed until 2:00 am, and I kinda never called home to tell my mom where I was. Ooooops.

Anywoo...Brant and I were pretty good friends, we just lost touch after high school. He had moved on to play in Holy Cow a sortof Biola Band, when I was still in high school, and I would go see him play a TON. When I got to Biola and had a radio show on KBBK, I thought it was cool that I wasn't the only one who wanted to hear "Raid" on the radio. (I'm playing the Chrysanthemum E.P. on my Ipod as we speak).

Brant was also a drummer for Plain Jane, and the Holy Cow redux band, The Glovers. Good times!

My funniest memories with Brant were playing Zootball at the tennis courts in Turtle Rock and yelling "C-MON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" really loud out the windows of his white van, scaring the crap out of joggers and what-not.

Now we're both married dads, we still have a ton of the same interests (poker, d-land, etc.) and we reconnect just in time for me to move to Oregon. Bummer!!!!

Happy 6-6-06

Monday Random Ten

My last random ten until I get settled in Oregon, So I'll do two.

1. Who's Gunna Ride Your Wild Horses - U2 from Achtung Baby
2. Time to Get Ill - The Beastie Boys from Licensed to Ill
3. Ready for the Rain - Dime Store Prophets from Love is Against the Grain
4. Extra Pale - Goo Goo Dolls from Dizzy Up the Girl
5. Happiness is Warm Gun - The Beatles from Anthology 3
6. Never on Sunday - The Chordettes from The Wonder Years Soundrack (Disc 3)
7. Do You Feel Loved - U2 from Pop
8. Alex Descends Into Hell for a Bottle of Milk/Korova 1 - U2 from The Fly Single
9. The Great Gig in the Sky - Pink Floyd from Dark Side of the Moon
10. Desire - U2 from Live at Irving Plaza, 12-05-2000

Four u2 songs and I wasn't even trying.

Now my "Road Trip" playlist. I'll take the first random song from each of the following artists, in honor of my dad and I driving up to Oregon together on Father's Day.

First, the bands/people that we have seen together in concert

1. Paul Simon - Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes
2. Merle Haggard - Pennies from Heaven
3. Amos Lee - Soul Suckers
(We've also seen Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, The Beach Boys and Chicago)

Oh and Dylan, of course(four times) -

1. Every Grain of Sand (Biograph, disc 2)
2. Not Dark Yet (Best of Volume 2)
3. Highway 61 Revisited (Best of Volume 2)
4. I Believe in You (Biograph, disc 3)
5. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight (Best of Volume 2)
6. Lay Lady Lay (Best of Volume 1)
7. It Ain't Me Babe (Biograph, disc 2)
8. Cold Irons Bound (Time out of Mind)
9. Jokerman (Best of Volume 1)
10. Baby, Let me Follow You Down (Bootleg Series Volume 4)