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Family is Homeschooling

We are taking it one day it time. Learning as we go. As Sol observed the other day, "If you think about it, really, the whole family is homeschooling."

Beautiful post from Lorraine about the decision to home school their oldest son.

Big Paws on a Puppy

I feel like Wire-lovers are a secret club, even though none of us can shut up about it.

Well, the word is definitely out. My love for The Wire has been well documented. With the fourth season, my love for this show has spun out of control. I have watched each of the first three episodes multiple times, and it drives me insane that I can't seem them all now.

While we wait for new episodes to come available "on demand" on Mondays and then play in HD on Sundays, I am left googling and googling. Did you know HBO links to the iTunes music store for all the songs appearing in the show? And here's a great quote frm David Simon from a Q&A with AOL Members:

And it's nice to be paid well for doing this gig, but if money was the goal I would not be trying to construct a television drama anything like The Wire. I think I've demonstrated, with The Wire and The Corner both, that I am capable of marginalizing myself in a niche within television's mass communications model. Specifically, I've shown the television networks that I can produce stories that receive critical acclaim but do not draw big Hollywood numbers, and therefore, my opportunities to make big Hollywood money are not there. Don't misunderstand: I am well paid. But if money were the purpose here, my bad guys would be Irish or Italian, my cops would hunt them down to great gratification, and the city depicted would be whiter, more affluent and filled with big-titted, long-legged women. The Wire is either not the work of someone thinking about payday, or if I am that someone, I am quite incompetent.

The Miracle Marlins

As a die-hard Mets fan, I've been getting a lot of text messages and IMs along the lines of "go Mets", "Mets all the way!" and of course, "Yankees suck!" It follows that as a die-hard Mets fan, I'm far from confident - I remember Orel Hershiser in '88 and Mariano Rivera in 2000 much more vividly than Ray Knight or Lenny Dykstra in '86.

The Mets have a nice team, but quite frankly it's hard to see them beating the Yanks or the A's in the World Series. I'm not sure if it's hard because those teams are juggernauts and the Mets don't have a second basemen, a third starting pitcher or a healthy Pedro, or if it's hard because I've seen the Mets lose much more than I've seen them win.

But the real story this year is not the Miracle Mets, but the Miracle Marlins. Despite the public disputes between the manager and the owner, the lack of one true All-Star this side of Miguel Cabrera, and a combined payroll less than Derek Jeter, the Marlins have a fair shot at joining the Mets, Yankees, and others in the playoffs. From The Baseball Prospectus:

This isn’t just a case of the people at BP or ESPN missing on their analysis as the season began. Short of Nostradamus or the diehard delusional Marlin fan I dare say few saw this type of performance by the Marlins coming.

To place this in perspective, consider the following: 53 of the 59 players who showed up for the Marlins Spring Training camp this season had played at least part of last season in the minors. The Marlins dropped their Opening Day payroll $45,410,334, from $60,408,834 in 2005 to $14,998,500 in 2006; that's a 75.17% drop. The Yankees' Opening Day payroll of $194,663,079 was 1298% higher than the player payroll for Marlins on Opening Day. The last time the Marlins had an Open Day payroll close to this low was 1999, when it was $14,650,000. The Devil Rays had the second-lowest Opening Day payroll at the start of this season at $35,417,967, which is still 236% higher than the Fish.

There is a flip side to this tale. The reason the Marlins' payroll is so low is that the owner is notorious for dumping salary, to pad his own profits or to make a power play for a new stadium. It's also sick that the Yankee's payroll, which has grown to over 200 million dollars this season, is as high as it is. And of course, there's a good chance the Marlins won't make the playoffs.

Despite the fantastic story of the Marlins, I'm rooting for the Giants and Dodgers to join the Mets and the Yankees in the playoffs - it would be the first time all four New York teams have ever made it at once.

Ralf @ Valentine's

Ralf 9-15-06

Portlanders! My friend Ralf is playing a show at Valentine's Cafe this Friday night.

The Automobiles of Lost

Rather than spending hours and hours exploring the theories and fan responses to the mysteries of Lost, I recommend jumping straight to Lostpedia's Automobiles Featured in Lost.

First Day

First Day
Originally uploaded by Moon Flower.

This picture is a nice companion to The school column no one will read.

The school column no one will read - Examiner.com

Link: The school column no one will read - Examiner.com:

All those new crayons and composition notebooks and sharpened pencils just make parents happy; they hold no magic for students, who clutch them like lifelines. They are sleep-deprived from anxiety and the knowledge that this year, at last, school will win and they will lose. Failure — this is the existential anxiety attacking eager-eyed students as they step off the school bus, all smiles, after Labor Day.