Dave's Thoughts of the Day: October 9th

I know that there are people who try to mix and match tops and bottoms when they go shopping at the store.  I feel like it'd be advantageous to shop for middles.   You know, belts, ties, underwear, all that middle stuff.. you play those middles right and it can draw the right attention.

I'm happy to officially welcome my buddy YOTS from Connecticut back to the West Coast.  He'll be in for a few days and we should be in for a very good time.  Some of my other friends from the West Coast will be in attendance. 

My new thing at Starbucks is the Cafe Latte.  Other lattes are good but they really have a lot of sugar... it's a whole extra 200 calories right there.  My counterpunch is the regular latte with no sugar.. it's just called the "Cafe Latte."  Fewer calories, but just as enjoyable.  The texture is quite good.   Had one just the other day.

Last night I had a couple slices of Tombstone Frozen Pizza.  I always wondered how they execute a frozen pizza.  Usually you need a pizza stone to cook a pizza, or a flat bed oven (meaning just the floor, no wire racks).    So I tried one last night... it looks like the secret is to coat the bottom with some special ingredient to make the bottom side of the dough like a cookie crust... then the crust just hardens on its own without falling to the ground... it's already semi firm.

It's an unusual arrangement... it also means the pizzas wind up being harder all the way around.  The best pizzas are *crispy*.   You get the crust on the bottom to chip here and there but the slice still folds and the rest of the pizza is soft to the touch.  Here, the bottom crust is both the crust AND a built-in edible pizza stone.  I can see why a lot of other people would derisively refer to frozen pizzas as "cardboard pizza."

So, it wasn't perfect, but I rather enjoyed the Tombstone pizza last night.  The ingredients were decent and the cookie crust at the bottom made it akin to a cheesecake.  However, I was into it.  I recognized the limitations and enjoyed its better atributes.  For example: the pepperoni.

Look, I don't want to be mean to Time Warner Cable Sportsnet, but I am *not* in the mood to watch preseason basketball.  I appreciate the dozens of updates from your network, the Lakers twitter, and the Lakers Nation blog, not to mention correspondents from all three, but come on guys... it's the bleeping preseason!!!   OOH ROBERT SACRE SCORED 4 POINTS!   NICK YOUNG IS ON A ROLL.  JORDAN FARMAR -- HE IS *BACK* BABY!!  I mean can we relax?!   The Lakers are going to need a miracle just to *get* to .500.   I mean people let us relax just a bit!

I haven't been to a regular library in many years.  I guess the Young Research Library at UCLA counts, but I was referring to the old fashioned public library in your local town.   Imagine those?  Books!  Do people still need books to write research papers?  I always wondered about that.  One can find all the same information online at some officiall sources.  Kids must have more challenges now.. trying to avoid plagarism.  Concocting original data that's accurate and not erroneous.  Citing sources and verifying their legitimacy.  There's so many layers here.   Usually you won't get a bunch of jokers together to just throw out a book and then get it read by thousands of people coast to coast.    I feel kinda bad for kids in that sense... in the early 90's data was not that rampant.  I honestly wouldn't know -- does this kind of access make writing a paper easier or harder?  I don't know.

In fact, I was thinking about viruses... it was way harder to get a virus on a computer in the 80s and 90s.   It would come in the form of a floppy disk so one would have to be really prolific getting software from random people to have that happen.  It did happen, but the percentages could have been lower.

I was also thinking... I root for five teams in sports... and three of them are a complete *joke.*  The Lakers at least have Kobe, but Jim Buss has proven to be an utter fool trying to "run" this franchise.   He doesn't have a clue about Public Relations, Business, or Marketing... that's only half the battle.   I  won't even attempt to evaluate his acumen for basketball sense... because it doesn't exist!  The Steelers, they are their own trainwreck.  It'd be a complete waste of time to even dissect *what* about them sucks, other than "the whole team."  That whole roster needs to be blown up.   I had good hopes for them too!  Just surprising how they came apart so quickly.  Basically, everybody got old -- quickly.  Finally, those Cardinal and *Gold* Jokers known as SC.   Now this situation is improving.  They fired Lane Kiffin, do the dance for that, but it's still a very volatile situation.   Hopefully Pat Haden will get this together and hire someone who can coach and recruit.

Speaking of SC Football, my buddy YOTS and I and some others will be heading to the Coliseum tomorrow to see the game.    I look forward to it!   USC hosts Arizona.  No telling how this goes but the experience is going to be dynamite.

So the Dodgers made the NLCS.....   not a surprise, for those who followed them all year.  What's going to be really interesting is to see how their opponent responds to the pressure and to the underdog mentality.   Over the last 25 years, the Dodgers would always be the underdog or the "second dog".  This is the first time in a while where the Dodgers emerged as the top dog.   I always felt so burned by how the Dodgers would always be blown away by the Phillies and I'd go, "When are we going to unseat the Phillies?"  Today, the Dodgers *are* the Phillies.  The best team on paper, the best pitching, the best lineup, it's a very complete team.  I can say with confidence they are a better team than any postseason Dodger team that came before it, going all the way back through that magical 1988 team.  That doesn't mean they're making the World Series.  It does mean, however, that the Dodgers needed, and acquired, a top dog "swagger" as the team entered the playoffs.  What a run it's been so far.   That *feeling* that your team is the better team... pretty remarkable.  Yeah, I had my doubts about finishing.  I felt like the lineup had some serious holes in it, but then those same "holes" would throw it all back at you.  First Crawford, going off every which way with the bat, he got hot.  Then Uribe, my presumed "would not hit a lick in the 'offs" guy, but no!   Uribe only hit two home runs, including one to clinch the series, for all intents and purposes, on Monday night.  Who knew?

It's a pretty cool feeling, to be the top dog, but the converse of that is that nobody's going to root for you... but who cares?  This is fun!   I like the Pirates too, so I'd be really happy if they could just beat St. Louis to make the LCS.   I'd have almost no issue with the Pirates making it all the way to the World Series in lieu of the Dodgers.  Man that team is fun to watch -- and their FANS are fun to watch!  I love it.

There's a guy somewhere either in my apartment building or the one next to it who just grunts out loud!  Here and there you get a "UGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"  What the heck is he doing?!  On the harmless end, he's probably in the bathroom trying to get out some gophers.  On the serious end he could be in big pain... arthritis or something.  Man, I hope he's not seriously hurt.

I want to thank all of you for your continued support of the Daveblog.   I have been more spotty about blog entries, but many games have been going late these days with playoff baseball, some unusual night football games, and some other things.   On top of that, I'd been going to bed earlier to make it to morning swim practices... I'm determined to get in a regular schedule over these 3-5 weeks before an upcoming swim meet.  I feel very confident about it too... just excited to keep in the swimming.  Anyway, I hope I can write more consistently as we go along.

That's all from here.  Last blog entry of the week, so I hope you all have a good weekend!  We'll have LOCKS of the Week tomorrow.