Music Friday: "For Your Soul"

Josh Ritter has a new album out called Spectral Lines. I've listened to it a few times so far. 

SiriusXM's The Spectrum has this song from the album in fairly heavy rotation right now. 

Unpopular Opinion: Bunting Is an Offensive Force

One rarely sees a bunt in the major leagues, but you're more likely to see bunts happen in high school and college. 

I saw some figure a while back that the on-base-percentage in college baseball with bunts to third base is something like .700. 

I can't find that percentage now, but I did find a tweet by Tyler Rost, the Director of Player Development at Duke, that provides this percentage: "The batting average across D1 baseball on all drag bunts is .533 (Trumedia). There are a LOT of hits down the third base line." 

My son's JV baseball team this season had a game in which they bunted successfully three times in a row and had a big inning because of those bunts. 

There's an old saying that "Chicks dig the long ball." 

However, the bunt is an underused weapon in the game of baseball. 

Music Friday: "Semi-Charmed Life"

Mrs. Nasty is collecting a list of songs to play when she's running the booth at travel baseball games. 

I made a list of song suggestions, and here's a 90s classic I suggested. 

Stay Positive: Birds & Positive Thoughts and Feelings

In The Washington Post, Richard Sima has an interesting article titled "Why Birds and Their Songs Are Good for Our Mental Health." 

The findings about birds creating positive vibes for humans is not a surprise to me. 

I'm fascinated with birds and their behavior, and how hearing and seeing birds is positive for humans makes sense considering the findings that Florence Williams talks about in The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative. 

I featured that book in a Stay Positive post back in 2017 if you want to check out my prattling on about her book. 

I'm a person who has a depressive bent from since a young age, and being outside and paying attention to birds is something that makes me feel happy. 

The author mentions the Merlin Bird ID app, which I have had before but I never used. So I may download that gadget again. 

I would also argue that playing attention to plants when one is out and about also create good vibes. I currently use the PlantNet app to identify plants when I'm rambling around outside. 

Notice that I didn't use the term "mental health" in my own writing. I didn't use the term because I'm tired of people using "mental health" as an excuse for not wanting to do something or just being lazy. 

Just stay positive by seeking out positive vibes, folks. 

Unpopular Opinion: No Doubt Was Not a Good Band

I'm trying out a new feature for this blog. I'm calling it the "unpopular opinion" feature. 

I love the music of the 90s. I had a lot of fun in the 90s. I graduated high school in 1989 and was in a college environment throughout the decade. And the decade featured some great music when Mtv was still playing videos and "alternative" rock and grunge were king. 

No Doubt, however, never jived with me. I like bands with female lead singers, but I don't think Gwen Stefani is that great. 

To me, No Doubt was just a white bread rip-off of Fishbone. Stefani even admitted that she took her fashion cues from Angelo Moore. And they did the ska-rock thing to a certain extent. 

When one of their songs comes on any of the SiriusXM stations I listen to, I'm very likely to turn the channel. Their songs do nothing for me. 

No Doubt was not a good band. 

Music Friday: "Verses from the Abstract"

 I was listening to the Grumpy Pundits radio show on the way down to move my daughter home from college, and one of the commentators on SiriusXMFC, Brian Dunseth, recommended that his co-host Tom Rennie take a listen to The Lower End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest. 

I've always liked A Tribe Called Quest because they were on of the hip-hop groups that were likely to use jazz as part of their songs, such as one of my favorites "Jazz (We Got)." 

Here's "Verses from the Abstract" from that album. 

Cheers, mate. 

Music Friday: "Never Gonna Change"

Mrs. Nasty is putting together a list of songs she can play when she's up in the press box for my son's travel baseball games. She usually runs the scoreboard at certain venues. 

I gave her all kinds of suggestions, but this song is my lone personal request. 

Music Friday: "Shadows Follow"

Apparently Metallica has a new album coming out this year. 

I heard part of an interview of Lars Ulrich with Conan O'Brien yesterday, and just today as I was listening to the Liquid Metal SiriusXM station, I heard this song. 

Music Friday: "Whip-Smart"

I've been revisiting some albums and artists I enjoyed long ago. 

One of those musical artists is the brilliant and fetching Liz Phair. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'd like for someone to give me a scientific explanation as to why chili tastes better after you've cooked it, stored it in the refrigerator, and eaten it later.

Here are some interesting stats and factoids from the May Harper's Index:

• Number of weeks the median American head of household had to work to support a middle-class family in 1985: 40
• In 2022: 62
• Percentage increase over the past two decades in the number of Americans over 65 in the labor force: 132
• Percentage increase since 2011 in the number of managers in the U.S. labor force: 32
• Factor by which this is more than the overall increase in U.S. workers: 2.5 

And here are some more the April 3/10 issue of The Nation:

• Amount the United States spent on its military in 2020: 778 billion
• Number of Iraqi citizens killed in direct war-related violence since the 2003 U.S. invasion: 275,000
• Amount the U.S. paid private companies for products and services during the Iraq War between 2003 and 2007: 85 billion
• Estimated number of people killed directly in major U.S. wars since September 11, 2001: 900,000

The Nation had a good reprint of their editorial in that issue about how they came out against the Iraq War. What a waste of lives and resources. We never should have invaded Iraq, a position I shared with the editorial staff of The Nation.

Music Friday: "Flyover Halftime"

I'm late. I had a hectic Friday and just forgot about it. 

I did pick up the new album, The Price of Progress, by The Hold Steady this week. 

After a first listen, I'm digging it, especially the final track on the album. 

Musing of the Moment: April Harper's Index

Here are some interesting stats and factoids from the April "Harper's Index":

• Amount, in hours, by which the top-earning 10 percent of U.S. men worked less last year than in 2019: 77
• By which the bottom-earning 10 percent of men worked more: 37
• Percentage of U.S. workers who have used ChatGPT for work who have not disclosed this: 68
• Portion of K-12 educators who have caught students using ChatGPT to cheat: 1/4
• Portion of parents with children under 18 who are worried about their children's mental health: 3/4
• Who are worried about their children being kidnapped: 3/5
• Being shot: 1/2
• Percentage decrease over the past five years in the number of Americans who believe in God: 6
• Chances that a U.S. adult under 30 believes in astrology: 2 in 5

The rich get richer and work less, and the poor work more. 

Do Chatbots dream of electric sheep?

At risk of sounding like an old fart, when I was a kid, I don't think parents gave much thought about a kid's "mental health" unless the kid showed some kind of severe problems. 

Hell, I was a depressed kid. Heck, I'm in general a depressed individual. But you don't see me going around whining about my "mental health." Some days were good. Other days weren't so good. 

So it goes. 

Considering the number of guns that are out and about in the U.S., I'm more worried about my kids getting shot at school/college or me getting shot.

I'm astounded by how many people believe in astrology. That crap is goofier in believing in a dude who turned water into wine.  

Random Notes from a Crank

I recently unfollowed a so-called friend on Facebook after I read a dumb-ass post of hers about a chem trails conspiracy theory. 

I need fewer nutjobs on my social media. 

The crazy thing is that I casually knew this woman in college and became FB friends a few years ago. She had some silly post about chemtrails, which correlates with the things I heard about how she and her husband believe that Covid is a US government conspiracy. 

You can't reason with stupid. 

I've been thinking of reading some classic pieces of literature that I never got around to reading during my lifetime. 

My first choice is For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. I've read almost everything written by Hemingway, but I just never got around to reading that novel.

I also never got around to reading Catch-22 by Heller.  

I have a copy of Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner that a colleague gave to me. That's a possibility. I tried starting it once but wasn't in the mood for it for whatever reason. 

I've also been thinking of classics from Russian literature. Way back when I took a World Lit II course, we read part of A Hero of Our Time by Lermontov, which I liked at the time. 

Then other options are The Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, War and Peace by Tolstoy, and Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak. 

Then I've thought about Don Quixote by Cervantes. 

Some of these could be very long reads. 

Random Notes from a Crank

I'm such a heathen that on Sunday I had planned to clean out the front flower beds and went to Rural King to get some lawn and leaf bags but had to come back home empty handed since it was Easter. 

So I did all that on Monday. 

And on Easter Sunday I cleaned out both of our vehicles. 

There's a saying that I find pernicious. It's "Happy wife, happy life." I think this saying is a bit problematic since there isn't one for "happy husband." If there were a saying about a happy husband, here is a realistic aphorism: "Happy husband--Wait, why is he happy?" 

You see, the normal heteronormative gaze of American culture doesn't care too much about happy husbands. At least that's the way I feel these days. 

This summer I'm expecting to buy a new vehicle for myself. It'll be the first new vehicle I've ever had because I've either bought used cars and taken over Mrs. Nasty's old car since she got a new one. I'm thinking of something sensible and fuel-efficient. It's not like I need some big SUV or something. Mrs. Nasty already has one of those - a Nissan Pathfinder. 

But I'm intrigued by electric vehicles. A new one is probably out of my price range though. And the Washington Post's article, "Should You Buy an Electric Car? Advice for People on the EV Market," sheds some light on the options. I'm intrigued by the Nisan Ariya, but like I said, it's out of my price range. 

Music Friday: "Fell on Black Days"

This song fits my general mood these days. I haven't been posting much, but I plan to get better. I'm kind of in a blogging mini-slump because of a number of factors. 

Regardless, here's a song from one of my favorite bands.