Weekend Quick Hits

Well, the weekend has gone by a little too quickly once again, but I thought I would share with you a few highlights of the past couple days before signing off. This Saturday mateop (and by extension myself) got to spend the day with my adorable little nephew.  This week he discovered a flair for baseball- hitting, catching and running around in the driveway until abruptly deciding he’d had enough, resulting in an impromptu timeout.

 

Mateop decided to take the little guy upstairs to ‘put him down for a nap.’ A few minutes later I decided to poke my head in to see how they were doing and was treated to the following scene.

 

(Mateoparquez insists that I include the disclaimer that my parents were in the room this whole time and he is not in any way shape or form a delinquent father. I can attest that playing with a 2 year old for 6 straight hours can really take it out of you.)

I’ll leave you with my other favorite little guy I get to visit once in awhile, namely mateop’s old black cat Jim. He now resides at my parents’ home but still gets all excited, runs up and flails around on his back every time he sees me. I have the cutest nephew and the cutest black cat. I’m a lucky guy. If you aren’t a cat lover I also had the cutest little dog who loved to come and greet me when I came to visit. She died.

Next week brothersparks will be treating you to posts on our take on the swine flu, the special election, LOST’s 100th episode and mateop will be posing the question ‘does the amount of keys on your chain say something about who you are as a person?’ On Thursday I’ll be off on a cruise to Mexico (or Catalina depending on this flu business) can’t say I’ll post, but expect a few tweets from me courtesy of twitterberry. Thanks to all of our readers for helping us get about 200 hits in our opening week. As always, continue to prepare to be riveted.

Hooked on a Neely?

Tonight brothersparks are embarking on our first co-authored post. ‘Co-authored’? you may ask. Well, if it worked for Loggins and Messina, we certainly think it is acceptable for this blog. Today we post on a subject that has been near and dear to our hearts for the better part of two decades. Our beloved Channel 4 Padres. That’s right. To us, it  will always be known as Channel 4 PADRES. The subject du jour is our new television personality, a gentleman by the name of Mark Neely. Neely, of course, is Channel 4’s new play-by-play guy replacing the dearly departed Matt Vasgersian who left for presumably greener pastures at  MLB network.

                   

Before weighing in on this ‘controversy’, we would like to take a trip down memory lane and give our critique of Channel 4 past and present. As our bullpen slams another nail in the coffin of this young season, we harken back to Channel 4’s fledgling first days when Mel Proctor and Rick Sutcliffe first graced our airwaves.

      

Mel Proctor was the prototypical ‘just the facts’ play-by-play guy who, according to his official voice123 profile, has ‘good range deep/masculine to soft and sensitive’ capabilities when it comes to recording services (*Mr. Sexy Mel Proctor Photo also courtesy of voice123). In case you are in the market for a voice actor who can perform in roles ranging from ‘middle aged male’ to ’senior male’, Mel has been registered on voice123 since March of 2004 and is apparently still actively seeking employment.  Rick Sutcliffe is beloved to us San Diegans for gagging away the 1984 NLCS as a member of the Chicago Cubs, giving the Padres their first of two embarrassing World Series appearances. Sutcliffe gave way to Mark Grant in 1997, but was perhaps best remembered for bursting into the broadcast booth in 2006 after 9 holes of golf with Bill Murray-and what was apparently an open bar at the clubhouse- leading to the following exchange:

Sut: Mud, you’re the best, man. Anybody on Earth that doesn’t like Mark Grant… They got… They got problems. Matty! What’re you still doing here in San Diego?
Matt: [interrupting] Red Baron, you were… Hey, by the way, you were…
Sut: [cross-talk] Matty!
Matt: …the answer to a trivia question earlier.
Sut: No-no-no, Matty.
Matt: We were… We were at Dodgers Stadium…
Sut: Everybody on Earth has been trying to steal you.
Matt: We were at Dodgers Stadium…
Sut: The Dodgers, the Cubs. ESPN.
Matt: Two weeks ago?
Sut: What’re you still doing here?

Yes he may have been drunk, but he was prescient, touching on both the ongoing Mark Grant controversy (the authors of this posting are HUGE fans) and the inevitable departure of Matt Vasgersian in 2009. In 2002, Vasgersian and Grant formed San Diego’s most beloved television duo since Simon & Simon (yes, Gmunz is OLD). The Vasgersian-Grant years were truly a renaissance in San Diego sportscasting (with all due respect to uncle teddy).

 

As they traded verbal jabs, bandied about pop-cultural references, coined new phrases and threw in gratuitous plugs for Valley View Casino and Sunglass and Optical Warehouse, the one thing you always took away from their broadcasts was that they loved their job and genuinely seemed to like each other. While some argued Grant was a windbag or Vasgersian seemed to be straining a bit too much to showcase his cultural relevance, brothersparks always found such critiques nit-picky and unfounded. One needs to understand how gawd-awful the Padres are most seasons to gain a true appreciation for the accomplishment it was for these two to keep the broadcasts consistently entertaining.

 

The departure of Vasgersian ushered in a new era for Channel 4: The Neely-Grant years. Truth be told, the original impetus for this post was a comical attempt at journalism on the part of the San Diego Union-Tribune entitled ‘All quiet on the feedback front for Neely’. Really? In a day and age where newspapers have a mortality rate rivaling ischemic cardiovascular disease do they really need to be writing articles where the headline essentially blares “No news here!’ But we digress. In the article (linked here http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/24/1s24mediacol22134-all-quiet-feedback-front-neely/), Channel 4 station manager Dennis Morgigno explains there have been a spattering of e-mails from viewers, the majority of which have been positive. Do we believe him? On the one hand, he’s the station manager for Channel 4, so what’s he going to say? That everybody hates the new guy? On the other hand we tend to believe he’s telling the truth because…we happen to agree with the viewers. Brothersparks have been subjecting themselves to Padres baseball since opening day and the repartee between Neely and Grant continues to improve. In one instance earlier in the week Neely was even chiding Grant for his road trip eating habits. Grant somehow managed to parlay this exchange into yet another gratuitous Valley View Casino Buffet plug and at that moment you almost forgot the two of them had only been working together for a few months. Remember, Vasgersian and Grant had seven years to perfect their on-air odd couple routine, so it’s nice to see Neely and Grant warming up to each other in such short order. The word being used by many to describe Neely is ‘understated’, but parksabouts are not so sure they agree. He certainly doesn’t belt out a Vasgersian-like ‘Santa Maria’! with every home run, but he has shown a flair for the dramatic when the moment calls. However, given that the Padres have lost 10 of their last 12 and scored 1 run in their last 19 innings, Neely may spend much of this season being ‘understated’ through no fault of his own. As a matter of fact, perhaps the quality of the baseball being played is the reason why, once again, the booth is the most intriguing part of the Padres game broadcasts.

Is it drafty in here?

The 2009 NFL draft came and went this past weekend, and once again, A.J. has me flummoxed.  With their first pick (#16 overall, due to some fluky, antiquated, since overturned draft order rules) the Chargers selected Northern Illinois Outside Linebacker Larry English. What concerns me about this pick is NOT that English does not hail from a major program or BCS conference. I don’t care that he was a man among boys in the middling MAC or that he was the first Huskie EVER taken in the first round of an NFL draft. I’m not overly bothered that most mocks and boards had him going a tad lower (in the 18-20 range-ironically some people had Denver taking him with their 2nd first-round pick). What concerns me most, is that for all the needs this team has, we selected an OUTSIDE linebacker. In case you don’t follow football or have been living under a rock, the Chargers currently retain the services of a young man by the name of Shawne Merriman.

Who is Shawne Merriman? Simply put, he is the BEST OUTSIDE LINEBACKER currently playing in the National Football League. Yes, he was injured and did not play last season. But do I believe for one minute he is going to come back at anything less than 110% after an entire year of rehabbing and working out? Not in this life. He is sick of not playing, he is hungry and he is ready to take out his frustrations wreaking havoc on opposing quarterbacks, linemen, running backs or anyone else dumb enough to get in his way. So what’s going on here? The Chargers find themselves in a win-win situation for the next two years. Merriman is set to become a free-agent at the end of 2009. If he falls flat this coming season, he’s simply gone. If he has a bounce-back year (as I am supremely confident he will) the Chargers have the option to apply the franchise tag to secure him through 2010. Is A.J. just playing games with Merriman and his agent Tom Condon (an A.J. Smith nemesis)? Trying to ’serve notice’ or play hardball? If so, way to be vindictive with the #16 pick in the draft. What with the gaping hole by the name of Matt Wilhelm at Inside Linebacker, Igor Olshansky gone (was he even really here in ‘08?) Jamal Williams pushing 35 (which in Nose Tackle years is like pushing 50) and Luis Castillo managing to have the creakiest knees in football at age 25, our front 7 is more needy than all the women on Grey’s Anatomy combined (judging from the promos only). Ray Maualuga would have been a perfect fit at ILB (an abosulute GIFT to Cincinatti in the 2nd round at #38) and Robert Ayers would have been a great addition at Defensive End taking over for Igor, or as insurance for Luis (Ayers fell to Denver, two picks later). Luckily, A.J. traded away our second round pick to move up in the THIRD round of last year’s draft to take Jacob Hester (check back later to see if he can block…he’s still busy out there figuring out WHO he should be TRYING to block) so I would have to wait until day 2 to see what Mr. Smith had up his sleeve next. And actually…I liked what I saw. With his 3rd round pick (#78 overall) A.J. nabbed an offensive guard from Texas Tech by the name of Louis Vasquez.

I have an interesting perspective on this pick. When I lived in Washington, DC from  2003-2006 all 3 of my roomates were Texas Tech Alums. Every Saturday during the fall I would head to the Pour House on Pennsylvania Ave. to watch Texas Tech play along with all the members of the DC chapter of the Texas Tech alumni association. The reason I said I went to these games was because I’m a dork who went to UCSD, a school with no football team, and thus I ‘adopted’ the Red Raiders as my college football rooting interest. The REAL reason I went was because all of the super cute, SUPER nice Texas Tech interns (fresh into DC, and just how I liked my women- young, naive and leaving town in three months) came to watch the games as well. And the funniest part is they all thought I was really cool simply because I was from California (those of you who know me in person find this particularly hysterical, I am sure). But back to football. I did manage to watch quite a bit of Texas Tech football, and ironically their style of play reminds me of the 2008 Chargers. They ALWAYS had a great quaterback, a superb offense and a HORRIFIC defense. As a matter of fact a joke quickly developed that when an NFL player couldn’t tackle someone, he was playing like he was a Red Raider (e.g. “Eric Weddle and Matt Wilhelm are tackling like they are playing for Texas Tech right now” was a staple statement made almost every game of the 2008 Chargers season). But what struck me was how much fun they were to watch on offense. They lined up a lot of spread formations, hardly ever ran unless it was a pitch or an option and got rid of the ball quickly. This had led many scouts to believe an offensive lineman from this program (such as Vasquez) would be too hard to evaluate and thus his stock slipped. A.J. has a penchant for finding superb players in these sorts of predicaments. Think Kris Dielman, and Antonio Gates. I don’t for one second believe A.J. took a 3rd round flier on this kid without being ‘able’ to evaluate him. A.J. liked what he saw, and knew he could get this guy later than he should have gone. And with the departure of Mike Goff  the seletion of Vasquez couldn’t be more timely. Kudos on the 3rd round pick, Mr. Smith. Now for the slew of 4th round picks (including 2 compensatory, another A.J. specialty). I’ll go through these quickly.

    

With the 113th, 133rd and 134th picks, the Chargers selected a Canadian(!) Defensive Tackle by the name of Vaughn Martin, Tyronne Green-a center from Auburn, and a running back from Colorado State named Gartrell Johnson, respectively. Green and Johnson are projected backups at their positions, but I am once again intrigued by Vaughn Martin. Canadian rules football is slightly different than the NFL  and that learning curve may be why Martin dropped. However, at 6-3 and a whopping 331 pounds, don’t be surprised if this is another sneaky A.J. Smith pick, who MAY just end up being the next Jamal Williams. In all, I’d give A.J. a solid B for this draft (many people are grading him lower). While I’m not sure I agree entirely with the Larry English selection, for now I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he knows something I don’t. After all, he’s the one making the big bucks making personnel decisions for one of the NFL’s top franchises while I’m slaving away over a blog entry that no one else will read. Unless there is major breaking news, this will likely be my last football posting until training camp (I promise!) until then, go Padres! (yeah, right.)

The Tangelo-Quite possibly the world’s most perfect fruit

I’ve always been a big fan of citrus. Lemons, limes, oranges, tangerines. Never had as much use for the apple or the pear. Perhaps it’s the juice-laden tangy wedges or being able to peel them or something. That and the fact that lemons and limes are a great garnish with certain beers and margaritas. But I digress. If you are like me you probably thought that the tangelo was a cross between an orange and a tangerine. You’d be wrong.  I recently learned it is actually an interspecific hybrid between a tangerine and a grapefruit, believed to have originated in Southeast Asia about 3,500 years ago! Whoever came up with that combination had a stroke of genius, in my opinion. You get the zesty tangerine taste but due to the grapefruit influence they are very juicy without a lot of flesh. In addition they have looser skin, making them perfect for peeling as opposed to the traditional orange. So why am I on the tangelo all of a sudden? I have a terrible habit of needing to feed sometimes in the middle of the night. This can be quite unhealthy particularly if you have  a habit of eating late night cookies, crackers, chips or high-sugar cereal. The tangelo, by contrast has a MERE 47 calories, while containing 1g of protein, 10% of your daily fiber, a whopping 100% of your daily vitamin C and a miniscule 0.1g of fat. Long story short, I have replaced my lays potato chips, cap’n crunch and keebler’s fudge sticks with a healthy supply of tangelos and have felt healthier, more energetic and less….fat. I strongly reccoment you do the same, or find a fruit you enjoy as much as I love my delicious southeast asian hybrid (and no I’m not talking about the Prius. That post will wait for another time!)

Old Faithful Rides Again

I have to say that I am very excited about this new big accomplishment in my life- yes I said big accomlishment. It’s been a long road back to Old Faithful, and I have a better idea now of how far I had fallen Who is Old Faithful, you may ask? Well I’ll tell you. She’s a Cherry Red 1998 Ford Ranger V4 2.5L compact pickup truck. With front and rear chrome bumpers, manual powered windows, non-operational power locks, am/fm cassette, 105,000 happy miles and 17mpg highway, she’s a little slice of automotive heaven. But in reality, she’s so much more. A little background: Old Faithful was the glue that held it all together. I used to clean pools and this was the truck that I did it in, well I guess you could say that I used to TELL people that I ‘cleaned pools’, ’cause I slept a lot during my pool cleaning days, I liked to keep late hours. I would ”work” Tuesday through Friday from about 12:30 – 3:30, drinking most of the day just trying to get away from the heat and the unhappiness. I was right in the middle of a pretty nasty nose candy obsession, life only looked good 20 minutes at a time and that got expensive.  This truck is also kind of a rabbits foot. For all the pitiful drinking and driving I never got a DUI while driving this truck- it’s bright Red! But it all caught up with me, it always does. You can’t just say that you clean pools, you actually have to clean them if its your source of income- not sure why I had to learn this the hard way but I did. So naturally I was quickly unemployed and blaming everyone but myself. My girlfriend had a baby on the way and I was unempolyed, unmotivated, narcissistic, selfish, manipulative and broke with a $50 a day habit. So naturally I was quickly single, homeless, unemployed unmotivated and everlything I have already mentioned above, frankly I was falling and I was falling fast. But I was OK, I did have Old Faithful but not for long. Soon enough I was in treatment talking about my feelings listening to other people’s sh*t  and really doing a lot of work trying to come to terms with being a rotten person. My dad had purchased Old Faithful for me a few years earlier when he was trying to help me ignore my substance abuse problems by bailing me out and taking care of all of my problems for me. I decided to sign the truck back over to my dad ’cause treatment gave me this totally unrealistic idea of how my life was ever going to work again with out my precious. So soon I had no wheels and I really felt like getting fu*k*d up ’cause come on what did I have going for me now?! Over the next 3 years I started climbling back and yesterday I was able to buy Old Faithful back from pops. How far did I fall? Well Old Faithful was the last thing of value that I lost when I took my vacation of horror from reality, and it took me 3 years to earn her back, now that’s really someting…. well it is for me.

Hello world!

We are two brothers living in Sunny San Diego, CA. We watch a lot of television. I mean, a lot. As in, we REALLY shouldn’t watch as much television as we do. Especially since we live in such a beautiful city. We also enjoy music, movies, video games and drinking. We do get out of the house and enjoy concerts, fine dining, not so fine dining and flat out horrible dining. We enjoy torturing ourselves by attending Chargers and Padres games. We look  forward to sharing our combined insights into arts, entertainment, culture and politics. Gmunz  leans to the right, and Matty is thrilled to share his libertarian conspiracy theories with you all. Along the way we will also share excerpts from our daily lives. Matty just re-acquired a 1998 Ford Ranger and is dying to share his thoughts on why 1998 is probably the best year for Ford Rangers-meaning that 1998 is Ford’s best year to date. Prepare to be riveted.