Manny Loves L.A.

Manny Ramirez made his Los Angeles Dodgers debut last night, and the normally quiet Dodger fans were loud for a change. Every fan from the front row to the All-U-Can-Eat Dodger Dog section, was chanting "Man-ny Man-ny" every time he was up to bat. Could Manny change the dynamic of being a regular, non-caring Dodger fan?

If I have learned something about Manny Ramirez during his career is that he has a way of making fans actually care about the team he is on. If you look back to his days in Cleveland, the team was a lowly basement dweller that was relying on Albert Belle for cheers. Manny changed the dynamic of the team and carried them into the playoffs year after year. His arrival in Boston was roughly the same, the Red Sox had a decent team, but could never win a championship, Manny helped them win two. The Dodgers could easily win the NL West, since no other team seems to want it. The Diamondbacks looked like another trip to the playoffs was a lock, but then June and July came and Justin Upton decided that he couldn't hit the baseball. The Dodgers has a really good shot at winning the West and even a better chance if Brad Penny starts pitching up to his talent and if they can pull off a waiver trade to pick up Greg Maddux.

The acquisition of Manny made a lot of things happen. Andruw Jones is now expendable and possibly Juan Pierre could see his way out of L.A. during the waiver period. Manny might have the defensive abilities of a bored little leaguer, but his offensive abilities cannot be over-shadowed by anyone in the game.

It's Been Awhile - Part 2

I know the pictures doesn't fit the blog, but it didn't with part 1 either. I've always thought Lacey Chabert was cute, but then like a couple years ago she got hot, so I like to feel like I was one of the first people on the bus. I need to start a petition online for her to be in more movies. I know she does a lot of voice-over work, but I think she is very nice to look at and seems to be a good actor. That's my opinion on her and I just wanted to share that.

I haven't posted since like early July and that is going to change. I've been in the middle of starting a new career, moving my corporate office (apartment), and started seeing a new ladyperson, so I guess all those things added up means less nerd time for the blog. I am going to make more time for this since I love writing posts and receiving some pretty creative feedback from readers. Instead of writing a bunch of individual posts about little things, I'm going to have some bulletins on stuff I've ran across since my last post.

Before I start posting some small stuff, I have one large thing I've noticed. I have had a pretty good month with traffic and I wanted to see where this traffic was coming from. I noticed something a little disturbing and hilarious. A lot of my traffic is coming from search engines when people type in their favorite athlete, but then typing "shirtless" after it. "Ryan Braun shirtless," "Tim Lincecum shirtless," and for some odd reason "Josh McRoberts shirtless" is a common phrase to find my website. Maybe I should be shaping my site to cater to male athlete groupies. I know my traffic would double if I had some sort of "Grady Sizemore shirtless" posts...maybe if I just put shirtless in every post this page will rival Perez Hilton. Now, random things...

- Manny Ramirez plaing for the Dodgers makes sense, most L.A. fans don't show up until the 3rd inning anyways. Sounds like an ideal setting for Manny being Manny.

- Columbus Clippers game can be a lot of fun, especially when guys like Pokey Reese makes a mockery of the sport. I did get to see Ryan Zimmerman during a rehab assignment, he's going to be very good.

- I enjoy baked goods more than I thought.

- "One Day As A Lion" is very good, Zack De La Rocha and the drummer from Mars Volta will do great things together.

- "Once" is a good movie, even if you've seen it more than 10 times.

- "Dark Knight" was the best movie I've seen at least 4-5 years.

- I could care less about Brett Favre.

- I kind of want the Bears to get Brett Favre, but I would like ESPN to stop with their hourly "Where In The World Is Brett Favre" segments.

- I hate moving.

- I know more about vinyl fencing than I should. Please go to usavinyl.com for all of your vinyl fencing needs.

- The Cubs are much better against the Brewers than they are against any other team.

- While listening to 1460AM THE FAN in Columbus, OH, turn the station with the "Mid-Day Show" comes on. The show was much better than Chris Spielman was on the program.

- I'm still not a fan of Futurama, but I have a feeling that that could change.

- Last.FM is a pretty nice program

- I am still laughing that someone still thinks Kyle Farnsworth is still worth more than a "player to be named later."

- Maybe I say "shirtless" a few more times