Category Archives: Uncategorized

Movie Review: Pulgasari (North Korea, 1985)

If you’ve heard about this movie, it’s almost certain that all you know about it is the background. Great Leader (and reputed movie geek) Kim Il Sung wanted North Korea to have its very own Giant Monster Movie; one that would be the equivalent of anything else from Asia. So he kidnapped South Korean moviemaker Shin San-Ok (and his wife) and ordered him to make movie magic. The movie never did get a wide release outside the “Hermit Kingdom”, vanishing without much of a trace when it was finally released in South Korea in 2000. A video release confused the issue by having the word “BANNED” appear on the cover in letters larger than that used for the title. It wasn’t really ever banned; it’s more like it was ignored.

All that nonsense overshadows the movie itself. While that might draw your attention, the real question is whether or not the movie is worth your time.

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When Your Team is Out of the Race

I freely admit to being a Mets fan. This is largely the fault of Howie Rose, their radio play-by-play man. The Mets radio team runs rings around John “Theeeeeeeeeeeee Yankees Win!” Sterling. Anyway, a couple of days ago, with the Mets well out of contention (even getting to .500 is a very long shot), he talked about why you should follow your team anyway. His point was that you’d get to be there when all these new, young players made their debuts (like I was there for Rhys Hoskins’ first game), and you could brag about it later.

This got me to wondering (especially with football stories starting to occupy the sporting press) – what sort of fun and interesting and amazing things happen with teams out of the playoff hunt in late September? Thanks to the “This Day in Baseball History” pages of National Pastime and Baseball Reference, I was able to dig up a lot of interesting things that happened on September 15 or later. The sorts of things that make following baseball worthwhile.

I’ve concentrated on events no more than ten years old, because we all know that if it happened before you were old enough to notice, it didn’t really happen.

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A Trip to Philadelphia – Part 4

If you must know, I stayed at the Loews Philadelphia in Center City. Centrally located, in easy walking distance of pretty much everything. Pricey, but worth it. Especially given the size of my bathroom! The service was excellent. I was pleasantly surprised to find that whenever I called Room Service for something, their phone system evidently brought up my name since it was always used in greeting. I did not dine at Bank and Bourbon, their in-house restaurant, but I did have a “rye flight” at their bar. I recommend Rough Rider Bull Moose Three Barrel Rye. I’ll have to track it down here at home.

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A Trip to Philadelphia – Part 3

As a baseball fan, I’ve been planning my vacations around the schedule so I can take in a game while I’m away. This time, I deliberately chose to go to Philadelphia so I could see the Phillies host the Mets. I hadn’t been to Citizens Bank Ballpark yet, so there was an extra reason for going.

All of Philadelphia’s sporting venues are clustered together at the southern end of the city. Mass transit is pretty good; the Broad Street subway line ends nearby. It’s a couple of minutes to walk to the stadium past acres of parking lots; it seems that’s the best they could do with all the new stadia construction coming after the subway was finished.

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A Trip to Philadelphia – Part 2

In case you’re wondering why I don’t post photos from my trips here, the answer is simple. I have a cheap cell phone camera, and you can find much better photos than I could possibly take simply by using your favorite image search device. And why do you need to see photos of my hotel room anyway? (grin)

In Philadelphia, all the historical sites and museums seem to be on the east side of town. The main art and science museums are on the west, clustered around the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the city’s “grand boulevard”. In this post, let’s take a look at some of those.

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A Trip to Philadelphia – Part 1

This year’s vacation had me wanting to save money on travel so I could stay in a nicer hotel and have more to spend on entertainment and activities. But I still wanted to be far enough away from home to feel like I was really on vacation, and not just day-tripping.

Philadelphia fit that bill quite nicely.

Being the place where the United States was born (both times, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the creation and signing of the Constitution), it’s loaded with history. However, I decided to avoid the obvious. I deliberately avoided Independence Hall and the national icon of the Liberty Bell. I’d visited them on a family trip in my childhood. Instead, I went to museums in that neighborhood that hadn’t existed back then.

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Overrated – Underrated

Way back in the mists of time (well, about 20 years ago, which is ancient history as far as the Internet is concerned), American Heritage magazine had an annual feature they called “Overrated, Underrated”. Historians and other experts contributed short essays on things in their field that they believed needed a reappraisal. They had to pair something that they felt was overrated with one that was underrated (e.g. Aviatrix: Overrated – Amelia Earhart, Underrated: Harriet Quimby). The series gave fascinating historical and cultural insights, and spread a little to other magazines. I recall Sports Illustrated did their own version….

Anyway, the idea is always a good discussion starter. Provided you can pen a short essay explaining your choices. Anyone can say Shakespeare is overrated; not everyone can explain why, as well as offer an example of an underrated English playwright.

Here’s my favorite example:

American Historical Document

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Does America Have a Bad Boss?

In today’s New York Daily News, Gersh Kuntzman has an essay where he looks at how Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been treated lately by President Trump, and then looks at what professional management experts and human resources people have to say about bad bosses.

I thought it might be interesting to compile some “signs of a bad boss” into one great list, and see how many of them apply to President Trump. There will be a few similarities and repetitions; consider those to be the ones the experts say are most important. I’ve left off a few that are irrelevant. For example, “Your boss bothers you on your time off” and “It’s hard to get up and go to work in the morning” don’t really apply here….

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Notes on the 2017 All-Star Game

So, FOX Sports is still using that football robot thing to lead in to a baseball game?

Is it just me, or does Alex Rodriguez sound like he’s reading off a teleprompter during the interview segments?

Nice segment honoring Latin Hall of Fame players. I wonder what an All-Time Latino Team would look like.

Anyone see Mike Trout? I know he’s rehabbing from a thumb injury, but he’s been playing rehab games, is the only representative of his team at the ASG, and was voted to start by the fans. He could have at least showed up in uniform….

Hey, FOX! How about showing the names of the reserves and coaching staff as they are being introduced? It would be a nice courtesy to the fans who haven’t seen these players before (and closed captioning is on too long a delay).

How about announcing the full umpiring crew? Pretty much every broadcast (TV *and* radio) takes a minute to run down the umpires for the game….

Finally gotten rid of that stupid “winning league in the ASG gets home-field advantage in the World Series” thing. I understand why it was felt to be necessary, but it’s should have been retired years ago.

Nice touch to have the gold stars with the number of ASG selections on the sleeves of the players. Did you notice that they were all single digits? Robinson Cano and Yadier Molina led the players with eight each (and given their ages, they’re not going to get many more). Looks like Henry Aaron’s record of 25 ASGs is safe (and not just because they don’t have two ASGs in a year anymore). I’m not sure what it says that we have no veteran players still playing well enough to be an All-Star. You have to wonder if all these young players will still be performing at anywhere near the same level in five years…. And how many of today’s players are “locks” on being chosen for the Hall of Fame?

The “in game” chats were kind of neat, but they will get tired very, very fast. Lucky for everyone that nothing was hit to a player while they were being interviewed….

Were the managers allowed to use the Replay Challenge? There wasn’t anything close enough for one, so we didn’t find out.

I wonder if Nelson Cruz is going to get reprimanded for the photo….

A nicely played, crisp, quick game. And not just because there was little offense. Pitchers were ready to pitch, hitters were ready to hit… And no visits to the mound or mid-inning pitching changes. Do you think Commissioner Manfred was paying attention?

Is it “All-Star” or “All Star”?

It was fun, wasn’t it?

Who Actually IS an All-Star?

Well, the voting has ended, and the teams have been announced – the starters as selected by fan voting, and the remaining rosters as selected by the Commissioner’s Office (taking into account fan voting, the need to have at least one representative from each team, and the need to have a balanced roster). To my dismay, I find that I got the number of players on each team wrong. It’s 32, not 35. That’ll show me….

Anyway, one can see the full rosters in many places. These are all listed by position. But what if they were listed by team? What would they look like? Let’s compare them with my selections, and see how off I was. You will also note that there are only 31 chosen players for each team here. The last spot is chosen in one final round of fan voting. We shall see…..

Don’t forget. The actual rosters are subject to change due to players being injured. Mike Trout will still be rehabbing by the time the game comes around; his starting spot has been given to Boston’s Mookie Betts.

NOTE: Italics indicate the starters as chosen by the fans.

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