Words cannot express the excitement that coursed through me yesterday when I received a text message from Ian informing me of the pending Johan Santana trade. It was like a shot of adrenaline. My first thought: pitchers and catchers report to camp in about two weeks. On that day, Mr. Santana will for the first time adorn whatever hideous new blue-and-orange Spring Training uniform the Mets have devised as a cheap marketing ploy to sell more jerseys. But today’s post is not a missive directed towards money-hungry front office goons, today is about the great “what ifs” that go hand-in-hand with any blockbuster sports trade.

The Hardball Times declare the Mets are the clear winners in this trade, but worry that a rotation of Santana/Martinez/Hernandez/Perez/Maine might not match what San Diego (Peavy/Young/Maddux/Prior) or Arizona (Webb/Haren/Davis/Owings) will have in a potential post-season series…Jayson Stark reminds us that only the Mets, Red Sox and Indians will boast starting rotations that feature three pitchers coming off fifteen-win seasons last year, and that Santana has led his league (a more hitting-dominated league) in fewest base runners allowed per nine innings (WHIP) four years in a row — and now he’ll be pitching in a pitcher’s park in a pitcher’s league…Rob Neyer guesses that Santana will dominate the National League like Greg Maddux did in the mid-1990s and Randy Johnson did five years later…One interesting fact. When Santana started games for the Twins, the team was 95-47. During the same stretch of time, when anyone else pitched, the team was 325-323. That’s a winning percentage of almost .700 versus a winning percentage of .500.

One of the worst pieces of writing I’ve read as a lead-in for tomorrow night’s season premier of Lost is available on the Entertainment Weekly website. But don’t bother reading it, it was clearly written by someone without a strong grasp on the English language. The author, who writes like a twelve year old girl reviewing a Backstreet Boys concert, lists several things that we need to keep in mind in order to appreciate this eight-episode shortened season. Too bad his list includes crap like Naomi, “who told the castaways that she was part of a rescue team hired by Penny to find Desmond,” but who could be full of crap. Oh, and Locke threw a hunting knife into her back. Yeah, guy. I’m sure her rotting corpse will play a really big role this season. I think we need to pay more attention to the parapsychology aspect of the show, rather than character development or back-stories. Things are going to get pretty crazy, I imagine. I can’t wait. Lost!

Apparently U2’s official blog posted a link to the story I penned yesterday about how Bono and the bands managers are two turds that weigh pretty much the same amount of Courics. I must say, I have to give some props to whoever runs that website, because they chose to a post a link here in spite of the continued insults I sling at “the biggest shittiest rock band in the world.”

Whoever posted this ad on Craigslist’s Missed Connections needs to step forward and reveal yourself.

Last but not least, I wanted to share with you some of the worst MP3s ever recorded. The artist? Me. The songs? Horrible. Pathetic. Choose your adjective. The first three songs were recorded for my Boobafellatio 2: This Time It’s Personal album, mentioned first in this post. A brief reminder. In 1998 or 1999, there was a January or February snow-day, and I stayed home from school. Sitting on my computer all day, I began to go slightly stir crazy. I decided to improvise a series of songs and put them together as a concept album. All the songs were about devious sexual acts (what else do you expect from a 15 year old boy?). There’s a story arc; it’s pretty easy to follow. Brenda and Billiam are a married couple, he beats her and gets sent to jail, turns gay, turns back, gets released, wants her back, but she’s already turned gay. I recorded the songs into Windows Sound Recorder by playing and singing into my computer monitor’s microphone. You can hear me clicking buttons if you listen closely. The album sold almost 20 copies on the now defunct MP3.com website. One of the songs cracked the top thirty power pop tunes on the website’s daily chart.

Brenda’s Song
Prison Sex (Baby)!
Billiam’s Song

The next two songs were recorded shortly after, in the basement of my friend Bret, with my first band, the Ian Weinberger Trio. We decided to do a full-on cover of Weezer’s blue album. The whole thing, start to finish. The only problem was, we did it in standard tuning and we weren’t very good. We’d never recorded anything before, and it shows. I’d never sung anything before in my life, and it shows. Bret sang “backup vocals,” which did not include a single attempt at harmonizing with me. Also, I pretty much learned how to play guitar in order to go through with this project. Ian handled almost every guitar part. The whole thing was a fucking mess. We tried to replicate the cover art by standing in front of a tan-colored wall, then using the paint bucket tool in MS Paint to make it blue. Too bad Ian wore tan shorts. Whoops, no more legs on the cover of our album! The whole thing was a train-wreck from start to finish. You’ll love it.

IW3 – The World Has Turned And Left Me
IW3 – Undone (The Sweater Song)
IW3 – Say It Ain’t So

I await your comments…

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