Christmas: T minus 3

I read this article a few days ago and the book immediately made it to the top of my Christmas list:

Pet Ferret Hit by an Arrow? Here’s a Book for You

The new Merck/Merial Manual for Pet Health: Home Edition (Merck & Company, $22.95), an exhaustive guide to the illnesses and care of many of the species that humans, sensibly or not, have turned to for companionship, aims to help out. …

In the 1,345 pages of the pet version, readers can find, among other things, the anatomy of a turtle; six signs of hyperparathyroidism in a dog; a list of 27 houseplants poisonous to pets; a description of lockjaw (an infection that leads baby birds to starve to death); instructions for what to do if your pet is shot with an arrow (don’t pull it out); seven causes of liver injuries in horses; the necessary components of a pet travel kit; 161 diseases that can be passed to humans from animals; and yes, a proper diagnosis for a sick gerbil.

It sounds like a good reference for any pet owner. And something peruse when I’m not tackling the Mitchell Report (which I downloaded but have not yet had to fortitude to start).

It feels like Thanksgiving was just last week. Some Christmas cards and gifts have been mailed off and will reach their destinations in time for The Big Day, but as usual a good number will be late. Call it a family tradition. The baking has gone well, but we need to exert a little more willpower here. For the first batch of cookies out of a yield of 36 I only ate 1. Since then, for every batch made we’ve eaten at least 6. Oops.

And I saw this the other day: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles. Chocolate chip cookie dough dipped in chocolate. What a concept! Farewell to willpower!

The New Dan Patrick Show: Jinx Epidemic

Dan’s not the only one with a fierce jinx on QB’s:

T.O. to Simpson: Back off — Cowboys WR says pop star affecting Romo’s focus

(I think this story came out after the DP went off the air today. He is sure to bring it up on tomorrow’s show.)

It might not just be Simpson; it sounds like Carrie Underwood has had a bad effect on Tony Romo as well.

Poor Tony. Perhaps they need to keep him in a monastery during the season.

In other breaking news …

Here’s something DP can use on the Family CEO next Christmas:

Missing Family Found Alive In Calif. — Dad, 3 Kids “Appear To Be OK” Three Days After Vanishing On Christmas Tree Hunt

Maybe next year he just gets to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot to pick up a tree.

And re The Missing Xbox: He needs to check with Lou. I’ll bet Lou knows where it is.

The New Dan Patrick Show: Marathon!

OK, I’m one-third of the way through my DP Marathon. Trying to get through the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday shows this weekend while I do Christmas things at home. I listened to most of the Monday and Tuesday downloads earlier in the week. Wednesday’s show was really quite good, especially after all the time and handwringing spent on the Michael Vick story during Tuesday’s show. I enjoyed the interview with Mark Cuban. DP has great chemistry with Cris Carter; he should be on the show more often. With the great editing done at KLAC I never heard the full story behind DP’s new sidekick, Seton. And someone else chimed in with comments during the third hour of the show, but I never heard an introduction for the guy, nor did I clearly catch his name. Pat? Pabst? DP’s new posse boys are named after a college and a beer? Also, the last bit where DP was going to talk about the SportsCenter ads special that aired on ESPN was chopped out.

Hawaii commented in I once tried to order an egg cream at a kosher deli …:

… As for your post yesterday. If DP is not catching your interest lately, I have noticed through trial and error that the second hour is the best for non-hardcore sports fans (or at least off season baseball fans). The first hour is top sports stories and related interviews and the third hour often rehashing everything and a last minute athlete interview grab. But in the second hour Dan relaxes, muses about the stories of the day, adds his side own stories, and has the non-athlete interviews.

I was thinking of adding a “worth listening to” daily post over at Palaver on whatever item or interview from that day’s show was particularly good with the hour link. But I often catch up on the podcast the next day or the weekend and I only catch a portion of the show live, so it would be somewhat untimely. Maybe a weekly one for Friday? …

An hour-by-hour ebb and flow never occurred to me, but I think you have a point. Dan seems most hyped at the opening of the show when he does his monologue and introduces what I call the Topic of the Day, a theme that he returns to during that show. It could also be that his Starbuck’s is having its greatest effect during the first hour. They do repeat a lot of interviews; sometimes I’ve felt that all I need to do is listen to the last hour in order to know what the entire show was about. To me, this reflected a lack of content on the show. But the Wednesday edition was loaded with guests; perhaps this is what we can expect from now on.

Re the “worth listening to” item: I’ve been hoping you’d do a daily recap, much as you did for The Big Show on ERT. That way I could take a look at his guest list (the write-up on the KLAC podcast page is useless) and decide which parts I could skip and which parts were must-listen. But it detracts from the enjoyment of the show if you’re taking notes while you’re listening to it (which is what I find myself doing sometimes). A weekly “Best of DP” would be a nice addition to Palaver.

Make it so.

The New Dan Patrick Show: Tuesday’s show was brought to you by the word “deserve”

OK, so guess I deserve it for listening to the whole show (via download last night), but I found Dan completely annoying with his extreme parsing of the word “deserve.” As in “Michael Vick deserves a second chance.”

I think I’m like most in feeling that people deserve a second chance after making a mistake, breaking a law, etc. Sure, there are extreme situations (e.g., mass murder, child molestation) that make us stop and reconsider our position. But for the most part people are willing to give a person a second chance, assuming that the transgressor admits guilt, shows remorse, pays a penalty, and vows to change his/her ways.

Dan got into STEPHEN A. SMITH MODE (plus did you ever notice how many octaves his voice goes up when he gets riled?) so it was difficult to follow his train of thought throughout the course of the show. (DP, I love ya, but it’s really hard to listen to the show when you are ranting.) I believe the gist of his argument is that Vick does not deserve a second chance to return to the NFL, but could possibly earn a second chance depending on his behavior while in prison. Yet he didn’t always repeat his complete argument; a few times he simply said “Michael Vick does not deserve a second chance,” which made him sound particularly hard-nosed and unmerciful. Depending on when you tuned in or what segment of the show you listened to Dan either wanted Vick to earn a second chance to play in the NFL or just plum does not deserve a second chance.

It was rather confusing.

I felt sorry for the poor guy who called in (towards the end of the show, I think), puzzled why DP doesn’t feel that Vick deserves a second chance, and DP started howling again about EARNING a second chance.

Dan had a reasonable point to make, he just wasn’t very articulate in making it.

I haven’t yet listened to the Wednesday or Thursday shows, although I heard the very end of today’s show and he was still fielding calls on the Vick case. Oy. Michael Vick is to sports radio as Britney Spears is to gossip rags.

I once tried to order an egg cream at a kosher deli …

Balducci’s offers ham for Chanukah

By Bill Hutchinson
Daily News Staff Writer

Thursday, December 6th 2007, 4:00 AM
Balducci’s in Greenwich Village advertises tasty boneless spiral ham as ‘Delicious for Chanukah.’ Store blamed a clerk for the gaffe.

Balducci’s in Greenwich Village advertises tasty boneless spiral ham as ‘Delicious for Chanukah.’ Store blamed a clerk for the gaffe.

Oy vey! Pork for Chanukah?

The Greenwich Village gourmet grocery store, Balducci’s, has become the butt of the Jewish holiday by advertising its boneless hams as “Delicious for Chanukah.”

Manhattan novelist Nancy Kay Shapiro, 46, spotted the kosher faux pas while browsing the meat section Saturday at the chain’s outpost at Eighth Ave. and W. 14th St.

When Shapiro went back Sunday, she took photos of the unorthodox display promoting boneless spiral-cut hams for $8.99 a pound, petite smoked hams for $6.99 a pound and boneless smoked hams for $6.29 a pound.

Instead of pointing out the mistake to management, she posted the snapshots on her blog to “amuse others.”

“I just thought it was funny,” Shapiro, a self-described “unobservant Jew,” said. “I wasn’t offended in any way. I just thought, here’s somebody who knows nothing about what Jews eat.”

Shapiro said that when she went back to the store Tuesday, the first night of Chanukah, the signs had vanished.

A Balducci’s official was so verklempt about the error he didn’t want to speak on the record. He fessed up that “it was a mistake,” blaming it on a stock clerk who normally doesn’t work the meat department.

He referred all other questions to the company’s marketing department in Connecticut.

The New Dan Patrick Show: 521

Hawaii commented in It kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever:

On Friday my local sports station interviewed Padre announcer/commentator Jerry Coleman becasue his budding baseball career was temporarily halted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He gave a wonderful (and occassionally even funny) account of how it affected him, baseball, the country, and so on. He became a Navy flier, flying missions at 19 with an 18 year old gunner. It was facinating.

I wish Dan Patrick would do stuff like that. In fairness I did not hear all of his show, so maybe I missed something like that. There must be a handful of guys still out there that can talk about the effect WWII had on sports at the time. Even a younger guy who knows sports history could do it (someone like Keith Olbermann if he were available to the show), if DP couldn’t get any actually athletes from the time.

It’s been hard keeping up with the show. I still listen to it in bits and pieces, but with the holiday season in full swing I am often not able to catch up with what I miss. One show pretty much blurs into the next. Nothing really stands out. I can’t even remember if I heard Friday’s show.

Also, since it’s not baseball season I don’t get to hear much about my favorite sport. And whenever DP does bring up baseball it’s just the run-of-the-mill/story-of-the-day deal: something on the Yankees or the Red Sox or Barry Bonds. I enjoy hearing from his two SI baseball regulars, Jon Heyman and Tom Verducci, but they’re not Peter Gammons.

Agreed, KO could have brought an interesting perspective on the intersection of sports and history on Pearl Harbor Day. It would have been a perfect time to have a discussion with Doris Kearns Goodwin. The interview with Jerry Coleman sounds like a winner. Is there a podcast/download of that show for us non-San Diegans to hear?

Tom Seaver was in the Mets broadcast booth this past season on the night the team honored the late Gil Hodges (former Met and Mets manager) for his induction into the U.S. Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame. He talked about Hodges’ skill as a manager, and how his no-nonsense approach was influenced by his time in the military. I had no idea that Hodges had served in the Marines and discovered that Seaver, too, had served. I’ve only been a Mets fan for the past five years and it was interesting for me to hear these details. I’d heard that Hodges once marched out to left field to remove a player who had loafed when fetching a ball; it makes sense that a former military man wouldn’t put up with such behavior.

521. I sometimes think of that whenever Barry Bonds and the career home run record are mentioned. Ted Williams ended his career with 521 homers, and I’ve read and heard comments that he could have challenged Babe Ruth’s record had he not lost several years of playing time when he served as a pilot in the Marine Corps during World War II and the Korean War.

How would fans today react if David Wright or Kevin Durant were drafted into military service and sent overseas to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan? Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy on Saturday. What if he was drafted? I’m not up on my Heisman history and the military service of the various winners, but I do know that Nile Kinnick won the award and died during a training mission during WWII. The stadium at the University of Iowa is named after him. (And not after a bank or a telephone company or an orange juice.)

Nick Saban on Friday’s DP Show would have been great. Dan could have wished him a Happy Pearl Harbor Day.

The Rick Peterson of Cats

rrgirl wrote in Christmas: T minus 18:

kitties and plumbing fixtures have such a special synergy. they really know how to explore the recreational potential while keeping an eye out for floods.

Interesting observation. This is the same cat who is fascinated with the garden hose. He stalks it whenever we drag it across the lawn. I think he thinks it’s a snake. He wrestles with it once in a while.

Lately I’ve been referring to him as the Rick Peterson of Cats. Because, of course, everything comes back to baseball. Just at the Mets pitching coach often puts a hand on the shoulder of the pitcher when he visits the mound, this cat feels he has to reach out and put a paw on you when you walk past him. Which is cute (he’s an affectionate, touchy-feely cat) except that his claws are like razor-sharp scimitars. I hope coach Peterson keeps his fingernails trimmed so he won’t slice or acupuncture a pitcher when he does the mind meld trick.

There was a hawk in the backyard yesterday morning. I noticed it from the kitchen window. At first I thought it was a beautiful sight, then I realized that the bird was probably looking for breakfast. So I stepped outside (1) to get a better look at it, but mostly (2) to shoo it away, lest it decide that the cats were tasty morsels. I’m not sure how much a hawk can carry. Our smallest cat is about 14 pounds. The Rick Peterson of Cats weighs 18 pounds and is built like David Wells:

He’d probably cause the hawk to have a hernia.

(I must note here that while I poke fun at Wells for his weight, he did bunt for a single against the Mets this past season. He runs pretty well for a big man. I should have taken it as a Bad Omen and not been so surprised when we didn’t make the playoffs.)

The Christmas/Chanukkah Turtle

One thing I love about Christmas is that it reminds me of my childhood, which was perfect in just about every way. I never got a turtle for Christmas, but this blog entry by Judith Warner in the New York Times and many of the comments made me think about my childhood and all the pets we had (including several turtles), Shells of Our Affection:

I’d been saying no to the turtle for the better part of six months. We have a dog – another product of my caving in to family pressure – and I thought that was enough. But a turtle was, Emilie said, the only thing she wanted. More than an iPod. More than an American Girl doll. More than a karaoke set blaring the world’s most horrendous music.

The “one-sided love affair” is a bit of a danger. A child probably wants an interactive pet, one that will return affection. You can’t expect a turtle to wag its tail or purr when it’s happy. But there is something to be said for learning how to take care of a pet, being responsible for something/someone other than oneself, and doing it out of love.

The topic of pets recalls Hawaii’s comment in The Lord is good to all, Compassionate to every creature.:

The thing about being a pet owner - if you are doing right - is that it is an absolute unselfish act. You take in an animal knowing you are likely to outlive it, and therefore experience grief at the loss. But you do it anyway. You bring the animal home, nurture it, train, love it, care for it, and eventually help move it into the next world. And then you do it all again. And again. And even again.

A pet can become a complicated gift for a child — and the family. But growing up with a pet can be the first step in learning how to be an unselfish, caring person.

And any kid who prefers a turtle over an iPod or a doll is A-OK by me.

NB: As several people commented on Warner’s post, you don’t have to go to a pet store to get a pet. A lot of pets are in animal shelters, having the misfortune of living longer than their owner’s affection lasted or just becoming an “inconvenience.” Coming from a long line of pet-lovers, I cannot understand that at all. One of my cousins endured years of allergy shots and what-not because she grew allergic to the stray cat that her family adopted, but there was no way they were going to give up the cat. He lived to the ripe old age of 18.

PS: I wasn’t exactly the neatest, cleanest kid growing up, but even with pet turtles I never once got Salmonella poisoning.

The Dan Patrick Jinx: part deux

Well, Rick Pitino’s not going to want to be on the show anytime soon:

Roberts guides Dayton’s upset win over No. 11 Louisville

Heck, maybe DP has had the jinx working since Pitino’s days with the Celtics ….

It kind of got us ready for World War II, or whatever

According to Nick Saban.

The USS Arizona Memorial

• Pearl ceremony to mark attack
• Attack Shook Hawaiians Beyond Pearl Harbor