2010 MLB Preview - American League Central

There are few things that I hate more than the American League Central. Maybe fat people who walk side-by-side on the sidewalk so you have to run the damn Statue of Liberty play to get around them. Fat people who plop down beside you on the bus and spill their flab all over you, probably. Fat people who beget fat children? Definitely.

1. Minnesota Twins
Somebody's got to get destroyed by the Yankees in the first round, and Minnesota's just the team to do it! Although their new outdoor stadium would be absolute death to dome or warm weather teams come playoff time, they won't finish well enough to win home field.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Janice Dickinson. Frigid bitch.

2. Detroit Tigers
Their pitching staff is young and moderately interesting, and their almost-above-average lineup is just elderly and arthritic enough to fall apart down the stretch. Manager Jim Leyland will single-handedly rescue the tobacco industry by smoking an entire pack every inning.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Paula Abdul. Makes a lot of noise, but old enough that nobody really cares.

3. Chicago White Sox
At least they've got Ozzie.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Fergie. Flat out busted, but not bad if you were to put a paper bag over their head and staple it shut.

4. Cleveland Indians
In three years they've gone from a JD Drew fluke home run away from the World Series to also ran that's lucky they've got the Royals in the division. They've traded away their big names, and not one of their Next Big Things has panned out yet. They canned manager Eric Wedge, but how does GM Mark Shapiro still have a job?
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Brigitte Nielsen. Went from Sly Stallone and "Red Sonja" to Flava Flav to that French dude. What the hell happened?

5. Kansas City Royals
Ladies and gentlemen, the place where replacement level players go to die. Like an elephant graveyard. Or watching lemmings fall off a cliff. Rick Ankiel followed Jason Kendall followed Juan Cruz followed Rowdy Kyle Farsnworth followed Jose Guillen right over those pretty waterfalls in the outfield. Note that the Red Sox have not won a World Series since they hired former Royals GM Allard Baird, who lay the foundation for this vortex of suck, as a consultant.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Tara Reid. Just a complete trainwreck.

2010 MLB Preview - American League East

Just because everybody else is doing it. As a means of better communicating my rankings with those who aren't as baseball savvy I've created a brand new metric: Hollywood Starlet Equivalent, which aims to simplify a club's ranking by equating it to a well-known female celebrity. Baseball Prospectus has already offered me millions for the rights to this revolutionary new system.

American League East
The best division in the league is also arguably the least interesting. The top two teams are obvious; the rest should petition Bud for a transfer to the National League, where they could all potentially contend for the Wild Card.

1. New York Yankees
Defensive upgrades in left and center should mostly offset the losses of Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui. I Stole Your Lunch would like to thank Hideki for getting the hell out of the division.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Whoever Derek Jeter is banging this week. Unless they suck, in which case they're A-Rod's blowup doll (no, not Kate Hudson).

2. Boston Red Sox (Wild Card)
Mike Cameron? Marco Scutaro? Adrian Beltre? Really? Why not just clone JD Drew and have him play every position on the field? I'm having flashbacks to the Duquette era. At least that pending midseason trade for Adrian Gonzalez will save them, giving them the Wild Card by the skin of their teeth.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Claudia Black. I will always love you, no matter how many shows/movies/miniseries the SyFy channel shoehorns you into.

3. Tampa Bay Rays
No team has a bigger distance between its potential floor and its potential ceiling. They could rack up 100 victories and walk off with the division; they could revert to their devilish ways and drop 100. The combined ages of every pitcher on their staff is lower than my bowling score, and their offense seems a bit overrated.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Ellen Paige. Those "in the know" love them, but I'm not completely convinced. But they're ok; they're watchable and somewhat interesting, and you can see how good it could get. Maybe someday...

4. Baltimore Orioles
Put the O's in any other division and they'd be the new "It" team that would make all the sportswriters mess their pantaloons. If their next pack of prospects comes through, look out.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Mila Kunis. Been trying to steal the show for years, and they're almost there.

5. Toronto Blue Jays
Did they get enough for Halladay? That depends. It's the baseball equivalent of Yoda giving up to hide in the swamp and wait for Luke and Leia to grow up. Had they given it one more good try with what they had, they might've been able to beat the Evil Empire. Their offense was coming around, and they've got a ton of good young arms. But Kyle Drabek and Brett Wallace have the potential to carry this team for years to come. Just not this year.
Hollywood Starlet Equivalent: Linda Hogan, ex-wife of The Immortal Hulk Hogan. Dumped the aging superstar for some punk half her age, tried to steal the Hulk's favorite toilet seat but had to give it back.

What a crummy Woot Off!

It's like they're just throwing up the slightly-techie crap they found behind the counter at CVS. It's also possible that they're selling off the last remaining scraps of Circuit City. I realize today's harsh economic climate has hit everyone hard, but Woot! has always been a beacon of hope in a sea of douchebaggery, a pusher of moderately useful or at least somewhat amusing merchandise. For fuck's sake, I spent three hours today refreshing the page just have the same stupid MP3 players with Mickey Mouse ears tearing apart another little piece of my soul every time. All that's left is a mushy little chunk that looks vaguely like Tara Reid's last movie.

But I still have hope. As yet there has been no sign of either Bag 'o Crap or the Screaming Woot! monkey; hence we may only be in the second leg of the fabled three-day Woot Off! C'mon, baby, daddy needs Star Wars undies that double as a node in a wireless mesh network...

(Author's note added fifteen minutes later: catastrophe averted. Just bought an electric stick mixer with whisk and chopper attachments. Now I just need a blonde dye job and I can finally take Alton Brown's place.)

Artsy Fartsy

I spend a lot of time in trendy Somerville coffee shops, the kind where everybody's glasses are square and they charge you extra if you don't have a tattoo or some sort of brown cardigan. I was unable to fool the clever waitress with a set of temporary red-and-black stars on my neck, but they can't argue with the brown cardigan I found in the dumpster out back even though it smells like overcooked hobo in melted cheddar cheese with a side of An Tain.

Said coffee shops tend to feature paintings from local artists. Some of these are nice, normal, pretty things, like houses or seascapes or ponies. Most look like someone shoved a few different colors of paint up their rear end and farted in the general direction of a canvas. Many of them are on sale - for six hundred dollars.

Originally, this was going to be a rant about how no one in Somerville would pay six hundred dollars for a piece of fartwork by some dude no one's ever heard of. But then I realized that's not true; my time on Winter Hill has blinded me to Somerville's seething subculture of hippies, yuppies, hipsters, yippies, huppies, puppies, and whatever else they call themselves these days that percolates beneath Somerville's working class majority like a steaming miasma of irony and PBR. They would pay their entire barista/bike mechanic paycheck for an inkblot on a canvas. They'd also pay six hundred dollars for:

• Square things
  
• Organic fish chow
• Particle board furniture from Scandinavia
  
• Swoopy haircuts
• Used bicycles
  
• Tattoos: aforementioned red and black stars, random crap from the fifties, talking chair from Pee Wee's Playhouse, string of cool looking Japanese characters advertised as an ancient proverb that actually translates roughly to "mama soap swine licker"
  
• Ganja

Meanwhile, the list of things on which the locals, the Real Somervillains, would be willing to spend six hundred smackers is quite a bit different:

• Used Honda
• Thumpin' sound system for used Honda
• Ground effect lights for used Honda
• Bail
• Tattoos, male: tribal triangles, flames, used Honda, Pat the Patriot
• Tatoos, female: fairy wings, "Princess," unintelligible tramp stamp with some sort of heart
  
• Tab at On the Hill Tavern to impress that one girl that's uglier and skinnier and has more teeth than all her friends and is in good standing with her parole officer
• Operation performed behind On the Hill Tavern by One Eyed Dr. Sully and his trusty coat hanger
• If unable to convince above girl that One Eyed Dr. Sully is a legit medical professional, game-worn Patriots jersey to wear at shotgun wedding
• Ganja

This concludes today's examination of the geosociopoliticaleconomic climate of Somerville.

Also, my campaign Dream Team has imploded. Chief Political Strategist Levi Johnson and his hockey stick dueled with Special Enforcer Jose Offerman and his baseball bat over a supposedly stolen bottle of tequila. Both are in intensive care. Economic Advisor Bernie Madoff took off with the ten bucks I loaned him. And the girl at the bus stop hasn't been at the bus stop for a few days. Things are looking grim for my Supreme Court Challenge.

I Demand a Recount

Coakley may have given her consolation speech, but the Colby campaign has yet to throw in the towel. Recount, now.

I don't blame people for not voting for her. Holy crap, what an unlikeable shrew. I do, however, blame people for voting for Scott Brown (previously known as That Yuppie Looking Dude). If I could put it into words, I would...but I can't. Just know that a vote for Brown was a vote for dumb, a vote for the status quo, a vote for being tricked and exploited. If the Republicans were actually the party of being smart about spending, I'd vote for them; but just like the Dems, and perhaps more so, they're just the party of selling out Real Americans like you and I and Hulk Hogan and Chuck Norris. Look at Rush Limbaugh; by the Force, look at Sarah Palin. What a bunch of terds.

Unfortunately, Chuck Norris can't do it on his own, and the Hulkster's had a few too many hip surgeries to help out. Until we wake up, we're going to continue to get screwed over by the same douche bags again and again. For all those who forgot, the current economic mess was caused by the lax policies of a Republican regime; hence, because a Democratic majority was unable to fix it in a year, the answer is obviously more Republicans. (end sarcasm)

I Stole Your Lunch will continue to withhold its vote until the day it does not have to choose between the herp and the syph. Someday, a man will burst through the curtain to a booming rock anthem and a terrific display of pyrotechnics to save us all...

...AND THAT MAN WILL BE SCOTT COLBY, and you will all do the chants and the hand signs and love every minute of it.