This Wacky World!

Ah, Mr. Verbard, You Have a Nasty Habit of Surviving

The tweeting of Martin Degrell (who runs the awesome Best Show Gems podcast) alerted me to the following insane story over at BBC News. Super-villains hoping to flee back their underground headquarters, take note: Here’s an evil genius who knows how to get things done!

A convicted sex offender and cult leader has escaped by helicopter from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island
of Reunion, officials say.

Juliano Verbard, 27, serving a 15-year term, and two followers, were pulled on to the helicopter by three accomplices.

The three had pretended to be tourists when they boarded the
helicopter, but then forced the pilot to land in the prison grounds
before flying off again.

They then landed a few hundred metres away, and drove off in a waiting van.

…whereupon Mr. Verbard welcomed a fluffy white cat onto his lap, stroked it, and proclaimed, “Yes, my plan has come together perfectly!”

Local police have few leads, but suspect that Verbard may have fled to a remote part of the island, and its mysterious skull-shaped fortress carved into the side of an active volcano.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 14-16

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

riverfront.jpgApril 20, 1999: Mets 3, Reds 2

The Mets traveled to Cincinnati to play a team other than the Expos or Marlins for the first time in 1999. The thoroughly boo-able Bobby Bonilla broke a 1-1 tie in the 7th with the first homer of his second tour of duty with the team, and Robin Ventura drove in another run in the eighth with an RBI single.

The Mets carried a 3-1 lead into the ninth, when John Franco decided to make things far too interesting by giving up singles to the first two batters. After a sac bunt, Pokey Reese singled in a run; a great play by Edgard Alfonzo kept the ball in the infield and prevented the tying run from scoring. Franco then walked pinch hitter Jeff Hammonds to load the bases with only one out, but struck out future Met Mike Cameron and induced a pop-up from Barry Larkin to end the game.

“I got away with one tonight,” Franco told reporters.

April 21, 1999: Reds 7, Mets 4

Birthday boy Masato Yoshii continued to struggle. The Mets handed him a 4-0 lead he could not hold; the Reds torched him for six runs in the fourth, knocked him out of the game, and cruised to a 7-4 victory. Yoshii’s ERA ballooned to 7.47, further endangering his future in the rotation.

During the game, Bobby Valentine got in a screaming match with home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck, Roger Cedeno took a called strike three that was, in Valentine’s estimation, just as low as pitches by Yoshii that had been called balls. “Yoshii threw 15 pitches that good! I’ guarantee you that.” Amazingly, Valentine was not bounced for his insolence.

April 22, 1999: Mets 4, Reds 1

Al Leiter finally earned his first win of the season in this game, going six-plus innings and striking out eight. Valentine said Leiter pitched “like a man possessed.”

Another first came from the outfield, which featured all three of its projected starters for the first time that season (Bonilla, Brian McRae, and Rickey Henderson). That lasted exactly one inning before Bonilla removed himself from the game with knee trouble.

Todd Pratt (continuing to catch in Mike Piazza’s absence) hit his second homer in two games. Armando Benitez allowed a few baserunners in the eighth but escaped unscathed. Franco recorded a rare 1-2-3 ninth inning for his sixth save of the year.

The Funny

You May Now Resume Dipping Your Balls in It

I am having a supremely crappy day. I won’t go into details, because the details will not be compelling to anyone, I assure you. But this crappy day comes on the heels of several crappy days recently, so it feels a lot worse than an out-of-nowhere crappy day would. If that makes any sense.

But news like this alleviates the general crappiness just a little bit.

To be honest, I saw no more than 5 episodes of The State when it aired, because it was on MTV and I didn’t have cable. (Well, I had limited cable access via grandparents who lived next door, but I saved most of that precious access for MST3K and 120 Minutes.) But I saw it enough times to know it was pretty awesome. Any show whose theme song samples Nation of Ulysses doesn’t have to do much else to woo me.

It was always a show I wanted to explore further, because clearly it deserved exploring. Unfortunately, no one saw fit to make it explorable. The fact that it hadn’t been released on DVD for all these years is criminal.

But I guess the perpetrators of this offense have been tried, convicted, and executed, because The State will finally get a proper DVD set of its own. That is fantastic news for fans of The Funny.

Now, if the Mets could remember how to catch balls and run the fuckin bases, I’d really be in business.

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants