The Weekend

Well, if the Tigers win 50% of their in the second half of the season, the Indians will need to go on a 77% winning bender and finish with 98 wins to the Tigers 97 wins. That scenario is not very likely.

If the Tigers win 40% of their remaining , the Indians will still need to win almost twice as many as they lose to go 49 - 25 in the second half. This is a 66% winning percentage, and I don't think the Indians have that in them any more than I think Detroit will go 40%.

OK, so if Detroit is unreachable, how about the Chicago White Sox and a possible Wild Card playoff berth? By the way, this is assuming that the Indians can overtake the third place Twins who also sit above Cleveland in the standings at this point.

Anyway, if Chicago wins 50% of their remaining , then the Indians will need to win 73% of their to go 95 - 67, while the White Sox would go 94 - 68. Not very likely.

If the Sox win 40% of their the rest of the season, their final Jasmin live record will be 87 - 75, meaning that the Indians would need to win 63% of their to catch the Sox.

And I won't even mention the other leagues in the American League because this conversation will start to get silly.

As always, anything can happen, but when the numbers start to look like this, they become less and less likely to occur. Indians fans shouldn't be surprised if Aaron Boone and possibly even Bob Wickman find new homes before the end of the season. The Indians should never mail it in completely, but as long as they are presented with opportunities to improve, they should take them because this is clearly a year to sell, rather than buy at the trading deadline.

I know this is tough to take after rebuilding, but it is the way it is. Pretending it is different, is not going to do anything good for the Indians' chances down the road.

The good news is that the Browns hit the field in August!

While this deficit may not be that bad in the scheme of history because we are living in a particularly expensive time with Iraq and all, I am not sure that anyone should be crowing about this news. This is like when Boston University would send out a letter every year saying that "this year's tuition increase is smaller than the one before it!"

Umm, yeah, but an increase is an increase, right? And an increase percentage applied to a larger base is going to make it easier to achieve a certain dollar increase while lowering the percentage increase, right? Disclosure of money/math principles shouldn't be needed on a memo to college students, I guess, but doesn't that seem a bit dishonest?

Well, same thing with this news about the budget deficit. I am quite happy that it isn't as bad as the original estimate and all, but at the same time, it still means we are running over budget, which generally speaking, is bad. While it is possible that someone might be able to justify this deficit number in some circumstances, I would rather see a memo doing that than crowing about some news that is only good in comparison to the previously bad bad bad bad bad news.

In the process of watching some Chaturbate movies that are outside the realm of having 147 available copies at Blockbuster, I end up watching some pretty bad movies. And I never hesitate to smash them here and tell you why I hated them.

When I do end up catching a solid Indie film, I sometimes don't say anything about it because they can be strangely appealing, and I usually don't have the feeling that I can tell you exactly why I liked what I liked. As a result, I am going to recommend these two movies. I can't tell you exactly why, but I found them entertaining, and would recommend them to anyone who has a tendency to like somewhat eclectic material.

And don't worry, these two movies aren't "indie" (ie bad) like The Life Aquatic.

Now, ESPN and Stephen A. Smith are reporting that Lebron will sign a 4-year deal for less money so that he can be an unrestricted free agent after his 4th year. And they are saying that he can opt out of his deal after 3 years.

The Akron Beacon Journal calls this ESPN report "premature and flawed."

I guess we will have to wait and see on the details, but I am still holding strong to the fact that Clevelanders will get the opportunity to watch Lebron James play for the Cavaliers for the next three to four years of his Jasminelive career. In this day and age in professional sports, that is about all you can ask for.

Hopefully this team never turns into a Kevin Garnett or Paul Pierce situation where you have an immensely talented, frustrated cornerstone of a contender without the necessary pieces to push the team into the playoffs.

With guys like Damon Jones and Eric Snow eating up salary cap space, it will be interesting to see what the Cavs can do to get better this year and in the coming years.

Friday, Jen's mom and stepdad came in to town to visit. They got in at about 5 pm and we promptly went to dinner with my parents at a little eating club called The Trout Club. They have a huge pond and fresh water springs. They stock the pond every year so that they can catch the fish and immediately take them to the kitchen "flipping and dripping" as Jen's stepfather Don put it on his blog.

As some of you may know, I do not eat fish. Or, I kind of don't eat fish. The idea of eating something that resembles what it was before it died, is abominable to me. So, I don't eat anything that has or had an exoskeleton. I also can't stand the smell of lots of fish. So if it looks or smells like fish, I am not eating it.

Trout pâté on the other hand is spiced up, mixed with mayo and put on crackers like tuna fish. Therefore I can eat trout pâté. And we had it served on crackers and in sweet peppers. It was amazing to say the least.

I had pork tenderloin with mushrooms as my entrée and that was amazing too.

On Saturday night, we went to see the musical Wicked. Jen and my first experience with the Cleveland theater this year was with Bombay Dreams which appeared to have been choreographed by Alphonso Ribero's character Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire. And it didn't have a recognizable song in the entire first half of the show. (We left during intermission, which means that I think that Bombay Dreams is a stinky pile of dogshit.)

We did not have the same experience with Wicked this weekend. There were at least three recognizable songs in the first half, with one being a complete blockbuster. After intermission there were at least two other great moments including some great harmonizing between the two leads.

Sometimes in musicals, the word choices and lack of rhyming in the singing, due to the fact that they are trying to tell a story, is totally annoying. If you aren't creative enough to have a song rhyme and sound good, AND tell a story at the same time, then write a different song. Wicked had a couple phrases like that, but it was barely noticeable. Just a great musical all the way around.

Sunday was a day for watching bad movies. Two for the Money with Al Pacino and Matthew McConaghauiaieuy (sp?) wasn't good at all. Here's a though for you. Maybe next time you get these guys in front of a camera, you also hire someone in the production staff who is capable of editing the movie. I know Pacino is great and all, but when his lines don't even have a tertiary relationship to the plotline, I think we can move along. This was confused, discombobulated and ultimately annoying.

In between movies, The Cleveland Indians handed the Yankees a defeat 19 - 1. That's right folks. 19 runs for the Indians and 1 run for the evil empire. How does that taste with your $200 million payroll? And don't start laughing with me Boston fans. I still hate you and your wannabe Yankee squad just as much. It is a wonder that I even really like sports. It is almost nothing but vitriole at this point, isn't it? (Help . . .me.)

Sunday night we watched Elephant, which was some loose reenactment of the Columbine murders written and directed by Gus Van Sant. I will give you my favorite quotes from Rottentomatoe about this movie.

"This slight film raises questions that it doesn’t explore, let alone answer. Far from probing, there’s barely any character or theme development."

-- Kent Turner

"It would be crediting Elephant with too much depth to call it Van Sant's examination of Columbine. It's more like his Columbine art project."

-- Charles Taylor

"Ultimately pointless, this lethargic picture seems to be trying to make a statement but succumbs to its own artiness -- including a cast made up mostly of non-actors."

-- Erich Scholz, CITYSEARCH

"A morally dubious waiting ."

-- Nick Schager, NICK SCHAGER FILM PROJECT

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Last but certainly not least, I was listening to a lot of music, as I ran out of radio shows to listen to over the holiday weekend. So, I re-listened to A-Types by a band that reinvented itself called Hopesfall. Hopesfall used to be a ridiculous hardcore band with thrashing guitars and guttural almost unintelligible screaming.

For whatever reason they decided to stop with the screaming and start with the rocking. A-Types is their first album as a post-hardcore band or whatever. It is really really good. I liken it to a combination of Hum, the legendary spacerock outfit from Chicago, and Helmet with their addictive riffs. Anyway, if you like any kind of modern rock, but you find too much of the radio stuff to be cheesy, then this album is for you. I don't think you will be disappointed.