I'm moving.

Ok, so not like literally, but more in a cyberspacial sense.

Yes, after getting frustrated with blogdrive for a while, and some hefty prodding from Olivia, I've decided to move my blog.

Sadness? I think not. Not yet, anyway. There will still be my rantings posted somewhat often, just in a different place with a different layout.

So, boys and girls, pay attention closely and update your links and bookmarks, because I'm only telling you once: the new place is http://www.livejournal.com/users/darthnader/.

Happy landings!

Well, another year of baseball is in the books. After last year saw the Red Sox breaking 86 years of frustration, this year saw the White Sox breaking 88 years of frustration.

Can the Giants break 52 years next year?

I don't know. I have hope, and it think it's realistically possible, but you can't call next years World Series when this one hasn't been done for not ever 3 hours yet.

I was rooting for the Astros the whole series. We spent last night's marathon mostly at the sports bar, just yakking it up as the game went on and on and on. As a bit of foreshadowing, I was actually a little late to the bar because I started my own baseball game on my Gamecube with plenty of time to spare, only to see that game go to 20 innings (I lost, breaking a 24 game winning streak. Sadness.).

It was a very competitive series, despite the fact that the Astros didn't win a game. After all, there were two games decided by two runs, and two games decided by one run, including the final game in which the only run of the game was scored in the eighth inning. Too bad I missed some of the games because I had to sleep in order to get up for work the next day.

(Probably the worst part of my job is getting up at 4:30 in the morning. And it's not even the getting up early that's the problem, it's the cutting my nights short that's the problem.)

So congratulations to the White Sox (and Travis, the only true White Sox fan I know). You earned it with an 11-1 postseason, and it's hard to argue against that. From Black Sox to World Champions: too bad it took so long to get there.

But, I suppose, it's not how you get there, it's just that you get there that matters most.

Cover songs can rock. Cover songs can suck. How do you figure out which is which? How do you figure out which are the best? Well, first, there are rules:

1. The original has to be a well known song. Sure, I'd get excited if I heard some random band cover an h&s song, but virtually no one outside the MFR community would know what the hell was going on.

2. The cover has to be done in the spirit of the original. As much as I liked Sheryl Crow strumming her guitar to "Sweet Child O' Mine," I'm sure the guys of Guns 'n Roses were rolling around in their collective graves. Or something.

3. The cover has to be original. There's no point in doing a cover song if you make it sound like the original. The artist has to do something to take possession of the song, without breaking rule two.

4. The cover has to stand the test of time. Sure, we all cried along with Whitney Houston when she sang, "I Will Always Love You," but who doesn't think it's the most cheesetastic, overplayed love song that makes you want to strangle yourself whenever you hear it these days?

5. The cover song can't be the vehicle to the artist’s fame. You can't ride a song someone else did first to the top. Either do a cover song because it's fun and cool and you don't care about becoming famous, or do a cover song because it's fun and cool and you're already famous. Apologies to Alien Ant Farm.

6. The cover song has to be on a record somewhere. You can do a really great cover, but if no one knows about it, you can't really call it "The Best," can you? A song covered live and then put on record is perfectly acceptable, but not until it's actually recorded and distributed.

7. The cover has to be complete. You can't sample part of a song, write a whole bunch of stuff yourself, and then call it a cover. Apologies to Diddy. (No, wait. No apologies there. My bad. He just needs to stop.)

8. Bonus points for covering a bad song and making it good, more bonus points for covering a good song and making it great, and even more bonus points for covering a really awesome song and making it even better.

So, keeping those rules in mind, I couldn't bring myself to anoint these as the "Best":

howie&scott - any cover they never recorded
Pearl Jam/Neil Young - Keep On Rockin' in the Free World
No Doubt - Come On Eileen
Run DMC - Walk This Way
Reel Big Fish - Take On Me
Boyz II Men - Yesterday
Life in General - Daydream Believer
Manfred Mann - Blinded by the Light
Marilyn Manson - Tainted Love (a cover song I actually called before it happened)

All good cover songs, no question. It's hard for me to not name Not Doubt's "Come On Eileen" as my best cover song ever, because that was such a great song to begin with. But when someone tops it, you can't deny it. So, I give you, as the best cover song ever, Goldfinger's "99 Red Balloons."

The original was well known, in English and German. It's a song about the craziness of nuclear war redone by a punk band. Goldfinger made it their own by speeding it up a bunch and then starting it in English before doing a verse in German. It's still good now after it came out a number of years ago. They weren't "famous" then, and I'd argue they're not really "famous" now, despite some video play on MTV for a bit, and some radio play every once in a while here. It's recorded not once, but twice, first on the album Stomping Ground, and then on the live album Foot in Mouth. They covered the whole song, and they get bonus point for making a cool song much better.

I'd like to hear what other people think of this, or other cover songs, but just keep the rules in mind (or suggest new ones).

When Franz Ferdinand came out with "Take Me Out" last year, I was confused. Well, more like indecisive. I liked the song, but there was something that always bothered me about it.

Up until recently, that was the only Franz Ferdinand song I'd heard, but thanks to their new single, I've heard another. In the process of listening to "Do You Want To" today, I figured out what it was that bothered me about "Take Me Out" (as it does in "Do You Want To").

Put simply, the songs don't go anywhere.

They grab you and shake you fairly well, and it's easy to get into them. After a listen, you want to hear them again. But then they just put you down and walk away. Maybe it's like going on a bunch of dates with a really awesome girl, but you never get to kiss her.

Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way. It doesn't seem to me that they're bad songs; in fact, they are fun to listen to. But I need a song to take me somewhere, and Franz Ferdinand doesn't do that.

Sign number 128 you've geared up for Christmas way too fucking early:

To the horror of your neighbors, you place an inflatable Santa Homer Simpson on your lawn on the morning of October 25th, six days from Halloween, 31 days from Thanksgiving, and a whole 61 days before Christmas.

When it comes to multiplayer video games, you can have your Smash Bros. or Halo (two very excellent games); I'll take Yoshii's Cookie for the NES.

When it comes to sheer intensity, on-the-fly strategy, instant gratification, and awesome repetitive music, I'm hard pressed to find something that beats it. It's just that good.

I first played Yoshii's Cookie with Sheridan, since it was his game. I borrowed it for a fairly long time, and I got a lot better, to the point where the only person who could consistently make a game of it, let alone beat me, was Sheridan. But then he wanted it back, so I returned it and felt lost.

Not anymore. I purchased it online for about $5 the other day, and it came in the mail today. I was a little rusty to start off, since it had been a few years since I played, but it was a great experience again. Will came over to play against me, and considering he'd never played before he did ok. He didn't win without a handicap, but he was getting better as we played more.

I also purchased Mario Party 5 (which also came today) and Monopoly Party (not here yet) for my Gamecube, so I plan on spending my two days off this week just sitting around and playing video games. Kelse has to work both of those days, and I need some time to sit and do nothing after all the overtime and other such nonsense over the past few weeks.

Maybe I’ll dream about putting cookies into rows of five tonight. That would be funny.

The moment I decided to root for the Astros in the World Series: in Chicago, while inroducing the teams, the organist decided to play the Star Wars theme during the introduction for the White Sox.

I could see using a recording (or, better yet, a live orchestra), but I'm not down with the disrepect from a stadium organ.

I finished reading a great book tonight.

I'm not saying it was worthy of sitting at the same table as an entry from Shakespeare. But then, Shakespeare was never a Red Sox fan.

In college, I stumbled across a column on ESPN.com, written by The Sports Guy. It was pretty funny. I was entertained. I don't know if I've missed one since.

The Sports Guy (otherwise known as Bill Simmons) was born in the Boston sports culture, and thrived in it quite well. Of course, his teams reside in Boston, so I always found it funny that i liked reading his stuff so much.

I think it was his excellent blending of humor, sports, and pop culture that ultimately drew me in. Can't go wrong with that combination, I suppose.

Since I started reading his stuff, he's witnessed his Patriots win their first Super Bowl (and two more after that). He's seen the NHL drop off the face of the planet, he's seen the Celtics play mediocre basketball, and he's gotten married and had a kid. But, most importantly, he's seen the Red Sox win their first World Series in 86 years.

So what do you do when your favorite team breaks a supposed curse of nearly four score and seven years? Duh, you write a book.

Well, that's only a half-truth. What Bill ended up publishing was a collection of his old columns. It was his story of watching the Red Sox, from the little inklings of the beginnings to the championship, with some minor alterations of his stuff. Mostly putting the swear words he couldn't publish on ESPN.com back into the columns.

I am, by no stretch of the imagination, a Red Sox fan. But I felt a connection with Bill, and indeed Red Sox Nation. After all, my team currently has the fourth longest World Series drought in the majors (third if the White Sox win this year...go Sox!).

That's what I took away from the Red Sox victory last year: there's always hope. I know I've written about The Shawshank Redemption numerous times on my blog, and Bill has referenced it all the time in his columns. Hope isn't just a word for the movies. Hope is where you find it, and I find hope for the Giants in the Red Sox last year, thanks to a little help from The Sports Guy.

Tomorrow, just before Carl and I hit another Avs game, Bill will be in Denver, signing books. I hope to be near the front of the line, so I can shake the hand of my favorite sports columnist, and thank him for giving me hope.

I've been meaning to post this for a couple of days, but since I've worked overtime for the last three days (including over eleven hours each yesterday and today), I haven't really had a chance yet.

Any road trip is not complete unless there is music. Since I was the one driving to Ogallala and back, I put myself in charge of the music. I made 3 CDs of my own mix, resulting in about four hours of music. It picked up a good chuck of the trip, with trivia/radio ruling the rest. So here's what I made, in the order of which they're on the CDs.

Disc One

The Cure- Just Like Heaven
Michael Buble - Felling Good
Duran Duran - A View to a Kill
Audioslave - I Am the Highway
Pearl Jam - Do the Evolution
They Might Be Giants - First Kiss (live)
Fastball - Out Of My Head
2 Skinnee J's - Sugar and Candy
The Offpring - Defy You
Weezer - Undone (The Sweater Song)
Jet - Cold Hard Bitch
Smashing Pumpkins - Disarm
Santana/Rob Thomas - Smooth
Violent Femmes - Blister in the Sun
Maroon 5 -Not Coming Home
Joe Walsh - Rocky Mountain Way
Nirvana - In Bloom
The Beatles - Why Don't We Do It In The Road?
The Hives - Walk Idiot Walk
Gorillaz - Dare

Disc Two

Crystal Method - Trip Like I Do
Everclear - Everything to Everyone
Garbage - Push It
Coldplay - In My Place (live)
Talking Heads - Life During Wartime
Matchbox 20 - Disease
George Michael - Freedom '90
Phish - Back on the Train
Evanecence - Whisper
Led Zeppelin - The Ocean
Dave Matthews Band - Ants Marching
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Can't Stop
howie&scott - Blues or Astroblue?
The White Stripes - Fell in Love with a Girl
Rob D - Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino Mix)
U2 - Bad

Disc Three

All-American Rejects - Swing Swing
Cake - I Will Survive
Blink 182 - Down
Nine Inch Nails - Only
Faithless - Bring My Family Back
Jimmy Eat World - A Praise Chorus
Beck - Hell Yes
The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go?
Robert Miles - Children
Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut
Billy Joel - Only the Good Die Young
Daft Punk - Da Funk
Eric Clapton - Lay Down Sally
Puff Daddy, et. al. - Victory
Tower of Power - Diggin' on James Brown
Green Day - Panic Song
Sublime - Date Rape
Barenaked Ladies - Falling for the First Time
Linkin Park - PTS.OF.ATHRTY

For those paying attention, you'll probably have noticed two things:

1. These were all songs selected specifically for driving. I fell like I cheated myself by forgetting any AC/DC, and accidentally selecting Audioslave's "I Am The Highway" instead of "Show Me How to Live."

2. Each artist has only one song. I made that a strict rule, and I still ended up with over three CDs. Over three, you say? Left off were the last three songs on my list (which I missed greatly):

Incubus - Under My Umbrella
No Doubt - End It On This
Goldfinger - Mable (live)

All I did was select a song and put it on a play list, then I hit random on the play list and burned the CDs. Insta-DJ! Thus the three that were left off, because if I had my choice, I wouldn't have left them there. Oh well.

The music served its purpose very well. I didn't fall asleep at all, or even get anywhere close to tired. All around, a good trip.

"Randomly crazy" was the phrase of the day, as we went to Nebraska. For pizza.

It started a few days ago when I was explaining dessert pizza to Kelse. Who has dessert pizza? Well, Valentino's, of course. Tragically, the closest Val's is in Ogallala, so we figured that was a no-go.

But then, why not? It's only a three hour drive (or less...) to Ogallala, and we both had the day off, so why not go for it? Then we thought of North Platte, and how it has a Val's and is also conveniently located halfway between Greeley and Doane. So why not get other people to meet us there?

Well, it turns out Jessica couldn't make it, and we didn't really try for anyone else because it was such short notice, so we can save that trip for another time. But I didn't want to just back out on going to Ogallala, so we grabbed Carl and went.

We made it in time for the tail end of the lunch buffet, which wasn't such a great idea since the food was a little old. But it was still Val's. Plus we bought a pizza and ate most of it on the way home.

It was a lot of fun. We stopped at a Wal-Mart in Sterling, where I bought some trivia cards and won a stuffed animal from a crane game (did that in one shot, too). We had Kelse read the questions for me and Carl for much of the rest of the trip. We also almost ran out of gas on the way back. I was pretty sure I could make it all the way to Greeley, but we stopped about five miles short anyway just to be safe.

But it was an easy trip. We left at 10:30 and we were back before 6, so an added two hours for a trip to North Platte would be no problem. Look for that trip sometime in the future!