Thread spool art

This past Saturday, we went to "Craft Attack", a family craft activity at the Fleming Museum. While there, we took Connor and Finn through the regular collection, where Connor liked the mummy best and Finn liked the more brightly colored paintings. We also passed through the Material Pursuits collection and made a great discovery: Devorah Sperber's After Van Eyck. I love the use of the commonplace thread spools to represent a pixelized digital image.

Jesus saves through the internet these days

Way behind on the blogging.

Reps from the LDS dropped by today; Sarah had seen them while out walking earlier, so I was ready when they walked up the drive. Unfortunately, dinner was waiting so I didn't have time to talk to them (and didn't want to encourage them by saying that I'd be available another time), so I simply thanked them for dropping by. They handed me a card with a picture of the heap-big Mormon temple on one side and a URL with associated text on the other; I handed it back, saying "I think I can remember www.mormon.org." They then told me that my family would be blessed simply by visiting the website. Maybe it was for the best that dinner was ready.

Guns of the South (Turtledove, Harry)

I'm trying to imagine the marketing possibilities: "Andries Rhoodie here. I just wanted to say that the discriminating time traveling white supremacist always chooses Apple for his 1868 computing needs. I'm not really entirely sure what we did with those Macintoshes, but a single video iPod holds enough kinky blinking porn to last the next 150 years. Thank you, Steve Jobs!"

Okay, I'm happy that after having to endure endless tripe about how the Southern states were "oppressed" by the Northern ones and that the Confederacy was built on "high ideals" (ignoring the slavery) that deserved to win out, that finally on page 411 (of the paperback) we get at a little bit of the truth: Jefferson Davis, worried about the voting split along state lines between Bedford Forrest and Robert Lee (who is a closet abolitionist) states, "Sectionalism appears to remain alive and well among us. That is dangerous; if we cannot cure it, it will cause us grief down the road: the United States, after all, tore asunder from a surfeit of sectionalism." Albert Brown (Lee's running mate) replies, "The Constitution of the Confederate States does not provide for secession." "Neither did the Constitution of the United States," Davis replied. "But if the western states have the gall to seek to abandon our confederacy as a result of this election, we shall--" He stopped; for once his facade cracked, leaving him quite humanly confused. EXACTLY!

All in all, it's a worthy read, if very slow to start out as we wade through Turtledove's excellent and exhaustive Civil War research.

Out of the playoffs

I've read the Sports Guy's articles since he was picked up by ESPN.com and greatly enjoyed them. Recently, he updated his "Levels of Losing" in honor of the Mets' collapse and falling out of the postseason.

Too bad they didn't wait until Monday night's game was resolved to finish the article. Don't you think that the career saves leading blowing two critical games in a three-day span to drop his team out of the playoffs (hell, not to mention that the first blown save occurred on a triple given up to the son of Mr. Padre, and the second blown save came in a game where a. the starters were Peavy vs. Fogg and should never have come down to being decided by a shaky Hoffman in the first place, and b. the hit by Holliday handed him the batting crown and likely the MVP award, despite being a product of Coors) deserves to be categorized? Gaaaaack.

Here's the final cumulative games over .500 by division. Can all 17 Padres fans take solace in knowing that their division was really tough this year? Given that Norv Turner is coaching the Chargers... no.

Week ALE ALC ALW NLE NLC NLW
2007-09-30 6 -2 18 0 -54 32

2007 MLB MVP/CY awards, part 2

The semi-long list of NL MVP candidates are, in OPS order (and excluding pitchers):

Chipper Jones
Matt Holliday
Prince Fielder
Albert Pujols
Chase Utley
Miguel Cabrera
David Wright
Hanley Ramirez
Ryan Howard
Adam Dunn
Jimmy Rollins

First, let's knock off Dunn and Howard, who are having nearly identical seasons that are not quite as good as Prince Fielder's. Next let's unfairly knock off a few people due to circumstances largely beyond their control: Cabrera and Ramirez, because their team sucks, and Pujols and Fielder, either of whom could have won the MVP if their team won the NL Central (and if Pujols hadn't been hurt). Next, we knock off Holliday, because while he's having an incredible season at Coors Field, he's been terrible just about everywhere else (and played absolutely no role in the sweep of the Padres).

I really have no complaints with the last four. Maybe you don't choose Rollins, despite his other outstanding numbers, because of his low OBP; maybe you don't choose Utley or Jones because they spent considerable time on the DL, despite the fact that the Phillies only win when Utley's in the lineup and Jones has had one of his best years; maybe you don't choose Wright because he's otherwise so unobjectionable. Maybe you bring Cabrera, Pujols, and/or Fielder back into the discussion, and I have no complaints with that, either. As I say, I don't envy the voters this year.