Saturday Song Share: The Baseball Project - Please Don't Call Them Twinkies

In honor of the return of Major League Baseball, here's the sweetest love song ever penned for the Minnesota Twins:

Why Is It Called "The Passion" of Jesus Christ?

Why in the world is the brutal torture, suffering, and death of called the "passion?"

There are two answers:

First, it's Latin.  The word passionem means "suffering, enduring," so from that perspective, it makes sense.

Second, it's the reason for the suffering.  Christ absorbs the betrayal, ridicule, beatings, whipping, thorns, dehydration, taunting, denial, heartache, cross, and ultimately death because He loves us.  He loves us with a passion that is unrivaled in all of time.  

So from that perspective, it makes sense as well, no?

Opening Day

Baseball returns.  With it comes the promise of summer.  A team with a chance.  Warm nights floating on the lake and listening to see if the home town team can regain past magic.  

Finally.  Baseball returns.

I know I often share this clip on this day, but it's because it is one of the best scenes from the best movie of all time.  

This game.  It's a part of our past, Ray.  It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again...



Play ball!

Singing Mayo Surgeons

Two Mayo Clinic surgeons are going viral for their cover of Mike Yung's Alright.  Their role as doctors led to the music choice, and their "operation" of it is virtuoso.

Enjoy:

Minnesota Wrestler Restores Your Faith in Youth

When you're just about ready to give up on the current generation, along comes something like this:



Anyone surprised that this kid is from Minnesota?

Thoughts on The March for Our Lives

The march went down this past weekend and the adulation and fanfare it was afforded was akin to a religious revival.  Likewise, the kids were able to bask in an afterglow from a fawning media that was all too eager to toss softball questions and gush over their actions.

Personally, I find it all really creepy.  The kids are creepy.  The media is creepy.  What's being proposed is really, really damned creepy.

Based on all that went down, here are a couple of takeaways that were evident from the event:

• This event wasn't about safe schools or stopping school shootings.  It was only about guns, and anyone that told you differently wasn't being honest.  Just look at reactions to armed police in schools (especially after Maryland) and to clear backpacks.  They don't really want safe schools.  They want guns.  
• The talking point of "nobody is looking to take away your guns - we just want common sense gun laws" is straight bullshit.  This movement is absolutely about banning most guns.  If you're looking to ban semi-automatics, you're looking to ban nearly all guns.  Stop lying.
• The "empowered" kids that are supposedly behind this movement are becoming really scary totalitarians.  It will be interesting to see how all the old people that are currently in their corner feel when these empowered youth figure out what a Ponzi scheme social security is and come to take it away.

Monsters.  We're creating monsters...

Saturday Song Share: Elton John - Madman Across the Water

From 1971.  Gives a great picture of how talented Elton was in this era.  Amazing singer, amazing pianist, amazing talent.  

Kiss Cam at Pro Bowl - Check the Boxes

This ad was sent to me as an example of a "great ad."  Why is it great?  Perhaps because it checks nearly all the liberal boxes:

• Gay couple - crowd goes wild!
• Not one but two Interracial couples - pretty much always a white guy and a woman of color on commercials.  Only rarely do you see it the other way around.  
• Hajib - Because you're not truly diverse until the symbol of the subjugation of Muslim women gets shown.
• Downs Syndrome kids - this one was surprising, as most Downs Syndrome kids are aborted, and we know how much the left loves aborting kids.  For example, only one or two Downs Syndrom kids are born in Iceland per year.  Every other one is aborted.
• Lesbian couple - I'm conflicted.  The Orlando Survivor t-shirt thing is troubling as a Muslim guy was responsible for the hate crime.  Maybe we can just blame guns and go back to forgetting the fact that Islam loathes homosexuals.  

Who you love is your business, and I literally could not care less about it.  Had I been in the stadium, I'd not have been surprised by any of these kisses.  They're great.

What I don't need is the feeling that unless I'm actively cheering, I hate.  

You know what I do hate?  I hate being told how I need to feel about every damned thing.  I hate overt virtue signalling.  And I hate that there are boxes - so many boxes - that just gotta be checked.

Do We Really Care about the School Shooting Generation?

This whole week we'll be treated to the students of Parkland High School as we build momentum to their march on DC for the banning of guns.  It started with 60 Minutes on Sunday, where we were treated to a breathless reporter responding to the claim that the students represent "the school shooting generation."

Since the shooting we've been told that we're either for the banning of guns, or we don't care about kids' lives.  The issue was that black and white, and for #NeverAgain to become a reality, we needed to stop accepting that kids being killed in school was OK.  Turn over the guns.  It's over.

Here's a troubling little statistic - 11 teens die every day because of texting and driving.  11 every day.  That is a Parkland shooting every other day.  That's a 9/11 of kids every nine months.  Out kids are dying in massive numbers, and it is all because of cell phones.

The solution is simple - cell phones need to be banned.  Oh, I know how many cell phones are out there, and how many are used safely and never harm anyone.  Doesn't matter.  How many dead kids do you need?  Hand them over.

What about the First Amendment on free speech?  First, the founders could have never envisioned a communication means like this that led to such distraction and death.  Second, your rights go by the wayside if I feel threatened, and with kids and phones, I'm threatened.

Hand them over, and stop the carnage that is occurring on an every day basis.

Then, when we've truly taken steps to save lives - lots of lives - you can go get the guns.   

Is Sling TV Commercial Too Much?

In watching NCAA basketball this past weekend, this commercial was served up:



Color me not a fan.  Those that know me know I'm not a prude, but this ad just smacks of creepy.  At best it's a risque SNL skit, and at worst it is a further degradation of traditional marriage.  Yeah, it is that bad.

Yuck.  Just yuck.  

The Boy Crisis

Admittedly there is some crap in here.  OK, quite a bit of crap.  There is also a ton of astounding information.

Try and fight your way through the crap, as the overarching message is a sobering one.

Is Kirk Cousins the Answer?

Today the Vikings will announce their agreement with Kirk Cousins.  It will be a ton of money, guaranteed, and is an all-in bet by the Vikings that Cousins will be able to lead them to at least one, if not multiple Super Bowls.  

On paper, the deal appears to make sense.  Cousins is the best QB free agent talent out there, and QB has been the position that the Vikings have lacked since Favre's first season.  However, this just doesn't feel right:

• While Cousins' numbers were very good, they were not great.  Granted, he played on a much lesser team, however, look at what Rodgers does with the crap that surrounds him in Green Bay.  Elite QBs make their teams elite.  Cousins didn't do that.
• Is Cousins appreciably better than Keenum?  For the money being paid, he needs to be, and by a lot.  I'm not sure that I see that in his game.
• QBs are fragile.  We know that all too well, being down two starters last year.  That guaranteed money could be a real albatross if something catastrophic occurs.

I wish I could be more excited by this move.  Unfortunately, all I feel is worried.

That makes me a Vikings fan, I guess.

2018 Hockey Hair Team

It's that time again when we pay homage to the salad and the flow.  Enjoy:

Pat Condell on Progressive Feminism

This guy is shot out of a cannon and could not be more right.

If you're paying attention to the massive amount of rapes being conducted in Europe right now, you know he's batting 1.000.

Worth a listen:

The Crosses Others Carry

Last month I was on a flight home from a long trip.  I was tired, homesick, and worried about my car starting at my minus 25-degree destination.  At least, I thought, I have the row to myself.

Just minutes ahead of the door closing, a tall, dishevelled man entered the plane.  My muttering of "please, no" was completely ineffective, as the gentleman plopped down next to me.  And plopped was the proper term, complete with a lot of interfering in my personal space.

My row mate turned out to also be an armrest hog, and that's a pet peeve of mine.  We weren't even to 10,000 feet when I started casting my aspersions on him and what he was like.

About five minutes later, I looked down to see if I could do anything about the armrest situation when I noticed his wrist.  It was all scarred from being aggressively torn up.  It was the ugliest scar I'd ever seen on a human being.   

The poor soul sharing my row had felt his life was so worthless that he tried, very aggressively I might add, to take himself out.  Why did he feel that way?  What could have been so terrible?  How awful his situation must have been.

I saw him in a whole new light.  He was not a distraction.  He was one of God's children and had suffered greatly.  My heart ached for him, and what he had to endure.

We have no clue what others have been through.  Instead of thinking the worst of those that we encounter, how about trying to see them as flawed and hurting humans, each with their own cross.  Some big, some small.

And some completely unbearable.

Saturday Song Share: The Tragically Hip - Grace, Too

Gord Downie at his greatest

iPhone Fiasco

Ever since the launch of iOS 11, I've been having serious trouble with my iPhone 6S.  There were a lot of little troubles, but the most infuriating one was that all of my Bluetooth connections would randomly be dropped.  That was particularly when using my Bluetooth headphones while working out, or using the capabilities to play music or talk on the phone in my car.

Sometimes I could go hours without a drop.  Other times it would be every three minutes.  The whole time I'd be sitting there wondering when the next time the connection would be lost.  It plain sucked.

Diagnosing online offered a bevvy of potential solutions, and I tried them all, from the mundane to the downright painful.  Nothing.

Having suffered from this since the upgrade last September, having tried every fix under the sun, and having been disappointed by the failures of myriad upgrades since to improve my situation, I took my phone into the Apple Store and was loaded for bear.  Somebody was going to feel my wrath.

The kid that came up to help me could not have been more nice.  I don't mean that as a cliche.  He was ridiculously nice.  He worked with me to try and diagnose my issue, and when one wasn't in the offing, he broke the bad news to me gently: I needed to do a full wipe of my phone.  My OS system was likely corrupted, and the only way to fix it would be to restore the phone to factory defaults and set it up as a new phone; ignoring my backups which likely contained tainted code.

It'd be long and it'd suck.  Everything would be gone, from apps to photos to contacts.  Everything would need to be restored, and we'd start from scratch.  He was sorry, but that's what we needed to do.

I couldn't say anything.  All I could do is take my sick phone home and relegate myself to my fate.

I did it.  And guess what?  It failed.  I was back to Bluetooth drops; this time worse than before.  Now I was really ticked.  I was able to navigate my way through to actually call someone at Apple - a rare feat in and of itself - and I was fit to be tied.  She was working off a script and asking me if I had tried different treatments, which I had, multiple times.  She then asked, "Have you reached out to the manufacturers of the devices to which you're trying to pair to see if they can make upgrades to accommodate iOS11?"  

That was it.  The last straw.

"WHAT?  You want ME to call FORD and have them fix my car because YOU upgraded YOUR software and it doesn't work with my car anymore?"  She hated my response and immediately handed me off to a supervisor.

The guy that hopped on the phone was a tool.  My only options would be to send it in for repair or buy a new phone.

Hello iPhone 8 plus.  So far, things are working OK, but I'm on pins and needles.  If this doesn't work, I'm going back to a laptop and a landline.   

Lizzie Converts to Catholicism

Lizzie's Answers is a wildly popular Christian video blog.  Coming up as a Protestant, she was well grounded in her faith, but she was also eagerly researching her faith.  With her research, her questioning, and likely with a nudge from the Holy Spirit, she felt the need to convert to Catholicism.    

I've personally been doing some research and delving into apologetics over the past couple of years.  Lizzie's reasons are among the same that attract me to my faith:

• The Church's direct line back to St. Peter, and to Christ himself
• The Eucharist, not as a symbol, but truly as Christ being present

Welcome, Lizzie.  We hope you bring some of your viewers with you.

Saturday Song Share: George Jones - The Race is On

Perhaps the best set of chorus lyrics from any country song:

Now the race is on
And here comes Pride up the backstretch
Heartache is goin' to the inside
My Tears are holdin' back
They're tryin' not to fall
My Heart's out of the runnin'
True Love's scratched for another's set
The race is on and it looks like Heartache
And the winner loses all

Fat at Lent

Every lent I make a commitment to get healthier.  With the end of the holidays, the annual Hunting with Kin trip, and the Super Bowl, it is easy to pack it on, and lent has always been a good go-to to hit the gym, put the beer fridge on lock-up and get back to eating right.

Usually, the weight loss is easy, but that's not been the case this year.  Part of it is that my activity level is down.  It has been so damned cold here that my only exercise is what I get at the gym on a daily basis.  Walks with the dog, a random run, or just walking around a store haven't been done because it's too cold.

Likewise, I ain't no spring chicken anymore.  My body is definitely changing, and that's working against me.

I was walking around the track at the gym the other morning and spied a guy in the mirror and asked myself, "Who's that fat SOB?"  The reflection belied it was yours truly.

Damn.

It's easy to get down on oneself in such cases.  When it happens, we need to look for a way out.  Mine came via a Minnesota Twin.

Miguel Sano showed up to camp at 293.

Two.  Ninety.  Three.

I plead guilty to not taking as good of care of myself as I should, but DAMN.

Miguel and I have a lot of work to do before Easter (which also coincides with MLB opening day). 

Go, us!

The Best Day and Worst Day of My Life

With our recent move to a lake, the next step for us was to go out an buy a boat.  With that objective in mind, that's exactly what I did last weekend.

Here she is:

Officially, here are the details:

• Model is Tracker Pro-Guide V175 Combo
• Motor is from Mercury, and is 115 HP
• Upgrades were made on the trailer system and the electronics

Overall, it's more than I wanted to pay.  That being said, it is the boat that I wanted, in pretty much every way possible, so I'm hoping that I won't be running into any regrets.  

Now we just need to get this ice off our lakes.  Given as cold as this winter has been, I'm hoping it will be sometime before June.

We'll see.