Category Archives: Sports

7 Quick Takes: TV Shows, Stupid Criminals, and Baseball

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Orphans Do you see these two cuties?

BrettKaia

Brett (on the left) needs a mama and Kaia (on the right) has a family who needs help raising the funds to bring her home so she can start kindergarten (hopefully this autumn). If you can help out at all, click on their pictures. Please and thank you!

— 2 —

NCIS. I am TOTALLY looking forward to the season finale next week. I’m sure it will be a cliffhanger given the nature of the show but I’d love to know who exactly is going after Gibbs. I’m also delighted to see Colin Hanks acting. I never saw his father in anything on TV but I’m a fan of his movies.

— 3 —

The Big Bang Theory. Tonight’s episode of The Big Bang Theory was actually pretty cute. It was nice seeing Howard doing his imitations of various actors and I thought the way Sheldon handled things with Amy was surprisingly good, given the nature of his character. (I think you have to watch it to understand what I mean and you can do that on the CBS website for free.)

— 4 —

Such a helpful boy. I spent last weekend in San Jose with my parents. On Saturday, I was feeling really sleepy due to allergy-induced sleep deprivation and while sitting on one of my parents’ loveseats in the living room, I dozed off sitting up with my hands in typing position. My mom came in and started talking to me before realizing that I was fast asleep. I apparently slept that way for a good 2 hours so my mom put Daniel to work in the yard with her. She would hand him cuttings of something and he would walk over to the yard waste container and put it in there. She also had him do that with the lemons that were on the ground. Well, he started doing it with the lemons on the tree once the ones on the ground were gone. Thankfully, my parents’ lemon tree is abundantly stocked with lemons so this wasn’t the end of the world. Still, I love that he was able to help my mom that way. 🙂

— 5 —

Fail-proof smoking cessation plan. I promise I am not making this up. This might just be me but I think Nicorette is cheaper than the fines and jail time for the assault charge. Heck, the UCD Medical Center cafeteria gives it to people for free because the medical center is a smoke-free campus.

— 6 —

Medical humor. Have you ever worked in medicine (i.e. doctor, nurse, receptionist, etc.)? I recommend Doctor Grumpy in the House. He’s an anonymous neurologist who does not suffer fools gladly and also posts about stupid criminals and interesting war stories. I recommend his blog highly — I’m in the process of reading through several years of his archives right now.

— 7 —

The required Quick Take on baseball. The Giants played several games with the Dodgers last weekend so it’s probably good that I wasn’t home — Jon is a Dodger fan and I support the better team the Giants. I might have been a wee bit… enthusiastic about the fact that THE GIANTS SWEPT THE SERIES. We got our butts kicked by Philly but that’s OK — it wasn’t LA so I can live with that. 😉

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

Five Favorites: Miscellanea (I)

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Five Favorites

Un

TED talk on PostSecret This is just awesome on many levels. Frank Warren talks about how PostSecret started and some of the postcards he received. If you’ve been a fan of it, I highly recommend you watch this.

Dous

Sergio Romo. He’s tied for #1 in the National League for saves. I wish I had a shirt with 54 on it for him because he is awesome.

That's what's up!

Tres

Litany Run. I have mad respect for Jenn for several reasons:

1.) She is dedicating her life to God.
2.) She is running a marathon. This is something I will probably never do given that I can’t run the length of my blog without dying.
3.) Her name is Jenn. That alone makes her awesome.

Jenn the potential Norbertine Cannoness

Y’all need to go sponsor her. Do it now.

Catro

Tostitos Multi-Grain Scoops. I told my IBS to take a hike because I wanted chips and salsa. These seemed like an OK compromise.

Tostitos Multi-Grain Scoops

Coupled with some decent salsa and cottage cheese, I’ve been able to enjoy my chips and salsa with the least amount of… G-I unpleasantness.

Cinco

NCIS. Is anyone who knows me surprised? Last night’s episode was pure awesomeness. Ziva is my homegirl. I heart Gibbs.

Gibbs
(HT: CBS)

My house panther has announced that I’m waaaaaaay up past my bedtime as well as hers. Go love up Hallie and the others.

7 Quick Takes: Insane Fast Food Creations, Murder Mysteries, and the 2013 All-Star Game Ballot

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

20×20. If you know what In-n-Out Burger is, you know that you can get some rather interesting combinations on their “secret” menu. I know my brother ate an 8×8 (8 patties and 8 slices of cheese) once and I guess the most that has ever been allegedly ordered is a 100×100. I found an account of someone who bought (and ate) a 20×20. I was pondering the sheer number of calories in that so I looked up the nutritional information and by subtracting the calories in a regular cheeseburger (480) from the calories in a double-double (670), I came out with the number of calories per extra cheese/patty (190). I multiplied that by 19 (getting 3610) and added the calories in the cheeseburger (480) back in, getting a total of 4090. Given that the estimate I saw on the 100×100 from Eat This, Not That was 19100 calories, I think this is probably pretty close to accurate.

It’s also no longer possible to order something like this — they capped the limit at 4×4 because they were getting some really bizarre orders.

— 2 —

All-Star Game ballot. The ballot for the 2013 MLB All-Star Game is out. I thought I’d link it here so you can all go vote for San Francisco Giants players. In case you need help doing this, here’s a list:

1st Base: Brandon Belt
2nd Base: Marco Scutaro
Shortstop: Brandon Crawford
3rd Base: Pablo Sandoval
Catcher: Buster Posey
Outfield: Gregor Blanco, Hunter Pence, and Angel Pagan

— 3 —

More fun Amazon.Com reviews. Apparently, people haven’t seen enough hilarious Amazon.Com reviews because this one was shared on Facebook on Wednesday. Even better, the things that “other customers viewed” are other joke Amazon.Com reviews.

— 4 —

Contemporary Worship Humor. Priest’s Wife shared this on Twitter this week:

It’s hysterically funny because it’s so true. I could walk into Bayside Church or any of the other megachurches in Sacramento and I could find a copy of this.

— 5 —

Orphans. Do you see these adorable kids?

BrettKaia

Brett (on the left) needs a mama and Kaia (on the right) has a family who needs help raising the funds to bring her home. If you can help out at all, click on their pictures. Please and thank you!

— 6 —

Mysteries. I’m currently reading A Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny and it’s her normal excellence. It’s hard to find a suitable adjective for the feeling that her mysteries evoke. It’s “dark” in the way that dark chocolate (with a high percentage of cacao) and I guess “somber” is the other adjective. She’s a crime writer in real life and she does an excellent job of portraying the darkness of our souls. Is “chiaroscuristic” a word? That’s probably the best term.

— 7 —

Prayer request. I am in allergy hell at the moment because every freaking plant is reproducing and we’re having lots of wind which is blowing it around. I’m not sleeping well because my face is congested, I’m coughing up nasty looking things, and the congestion is giving me wicked headaches. Could you please pray for some relief from it for me? Thanks!

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Cartacacoethes, Baseball, and the Ring Theory

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7 Quick Takes

Before we start, please lift up some prayers for Jen (our usual hostess) and her son Joseph Thomas who was born on Monday and is in the NICU 30 minutes away with lung/breathing issues. We’re well acquainted with the NICU here at ::Meditatio:: and I hope Jen knows that my husband Jon, our son Daniel, and I are praying for her and her family.

— 1 —

The Ring Theory. This article was published in the L.A. Times and shared around Facebook this week. The premise is making a dot in the center (the person suffering) and drawing concentric circles outward representing different subsets of people ranging from the spouse/family to close friends to colleagues etc. The rule is that any negative comments can only be directed to the outer rings from wherever you happen to be while comforting words can be directed to everyone inward.

Example of ring theory
(HT: LA Times website)

Can I just say that I love this and wish I could have had it for some special people in Montana?

— 2 —

Search term fun. Thanks to the installation of the Jetpack plugin for WordPress, I can engage in sharing interesting search terms. The vast majority of mine have to do with famous brothers in literature because of a post I wrote 9 years ago while trying to find names for my mom’s boys. The interesting ones in the last three months have been…

gallbladder soy cheese
mentos tsa
darius rucker pat tillman memorial
i hate niacin
jack nicholson “as good as it gets” candy in jars
sergio romo tastic t shirts
spanking and fibromyalgia

— 3 —

Update on Ian. Some of you might remember me asking for prayer for Ian Brown, one of my college classmates. The last time I updated, he was dealing with sinusoidal obstructive syndrome which is a rare liver disease associated with his bone marrow transplant. The only hope was an experimental drug called Defibrotide which is only made in Italy. They procured some for him and after a 21 day course, he is doing MUCH better. The latest blog post had a picture of him walking to the local Farmer’s Market which required a 3 1/2 mile walk there and back. For those of us who know Ian, this is nothing new. He is the embodiment of “abundant life”.

— 4 —

Brett. This is Brett. He needs a mama.

Brett

Could you possibly be his mama? Click his picture to learn more about him.

— 5 —

Kaia. Do you have a bunch of loose change lying around? Want to use it to make a BIG difference?

Kaia's Kindergarten Fund

Click on the picture of this beautiful young lady (Kaia) to find out about how your loose change can help her family bring her home and let her go to kindergarten this fall.

— 6 —

Baseball. The Giants did not do well against the Cardinals last weekend (a 14-3 loss on the 7th was the most embarrassing) but they swept their series with the Rockies and have done well against the Cubs thus far. I’m kind of bummed that the games aren’t usually shown up here in Sacramento except on rare occasions but I appreciate that I can usually catch them online.

— 7 —

Cartacacoethes. A few weeks ago, Leah of Unequally Yoked mentioned the book Maphead by Ken Jennings. I’ve stopped and started it a couple times because I’m finding that I can’t be reading anything else at the same time and my local library seems to have cleared the backlog on my request list. I’m aiming to read it during my spare moments this weekend (which may just be Saturday night — Jon has Acquire the Fire and Daniel will be at a Respite Night). Meanwhile, I’m having major cartacacoethes.

For more Quick Takes, visit the fabulous Grace at Camp Patton.

7 Quick Takes: Baseball, British TV Shows, and How Not To Talk To Kitties

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

North Korean propaganda. I don’t know how real this particular video is but it both amuses and scares me.

I’m guessing the footage of the United States was taken after Superstorm Nemo? In any case, I wonder if it’s too close to bedtime for another cup of snow coffee.

— 2 —

Easter. Easter was quiet for us. We had church in the morning and stayed home in the afternoon. I sort of wish that we could have gone to see family or something but after two busy weekends, Holy Week with a lot going on, and Daniel being on Spring Break, it was good to have a quiet Sunday. Jon needed the naptime as did Daniel.

— 3 —

Take me out to the ballgame. Baseball season has officially started. My Giants took the series with Jon’s Dodgers 2-1. In the last game, my boys got their first two home runs of the season. Our Panda hit a 2-run homer in the 3rd and Hunter Pence shot one off in the 6th. They open against the Cardinals in San Francisco on Friday and I’ll be gone so I’ll unfortunately miss it. The World Series ring ceremony is on the 7th and I’ll unfortunately miss that one as well.

— 4 —

The doctor is in. My mom introduced me to the British series “Doc Martin” while I was in San Jose for my anniversary a few weekends ago. It’s addictive — Jon and I watched the rest of the first season the next day. If I hadn’t had a little boy on Spring Break, I probably would have finished the series that week! He’s the British version of “House” and the recurring characters are wonderful. His receptionist is the picture of apathy and the people in Port Wenn (his small town) are lovely. It kind of makes me want to catch up on “Hart of Dixie”.

— 5 —

Talking to kitties. Catfoodbreath, one of my favorite Twitter kitties, has a useful blog post on how not to talk to a kitty. I’m not guilty of #1 on that list… per se. When I talk to my demon spawn cat Freya, I have a tendency to say things like “CAT! CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT!” (She was fostered with Rottweilers so I sometimes have to remind her that she is a cat.)

— 6 —

Forty to Forever. Forty Days to Forever is done and we raised $10,000! Woohooooo!!!! Brett had a little over $100 added to his adoption grant so that’s some success there. He still needs a mama so go click on his picture to find out more about him.

Brett

— 7 —

Querying the Hive Mind. My church is doing a craft fair after Thanksgiving. Could you go to my Pinterest page for crocheted stuff and tell me what you think I should make? Please and thank you!

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Fundraising, Sergio Romo, and the Lions of Rome

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

GoFundMe. I’ve seen a couple GoFundMe sites among my blog reads this week. In the interest of helping everyone out, here are the ones for people I know or follow.

[=] Help the CDC team go to NYC! (OK… this is actually IndieGoGo but I’ll lump them into this category for the moment.)
[=] Help Little Bear have surgery to fix his paws. Little Bear is an adorable little house panther who was born with deformed legs. He won a contest to be on the cover of Modern Cat magazine and his mommy is trying to raise the money to get his paws fixed.
[=] Help to pay for Anna’s transplant meds. Anna got a new liver last fall and the co-pay on her anti-rejection meds jumped up to $300. She doesn’t get a choice on whether she takes the meds and her mom started the GoFundMe to raise some funds so that they can pay for them.
[=] Save Aquinas and More. Aquinas and More is an online store where you can get a number of Catholic things. Two things that make them special (and extra cool in my eyes) are the registries for seminarians and the fact that they will not sell anything made in China. If everyone who liked them on Facebook contributed maybe $10-20, they could re-open and do so better than before.

— 2 —

Forty Days to Forever. Brett will be the guest of honor on the blog at Forty Days to Forever on March 13th. Please share this if you have a blog. Thanks!

— 3 —

Kaia’s Kindergarten Fund. I’m doing a fundraiser for Kaia over on her blog called Kaia’s Kindergarten Fund. It’s super easy — all you have to do is save your spare change in a jar or bottle and when it’s full, take it to the bank to count it. I have all the information you’ll likely need over at Saving Kaia.

My collection bottle

— 4 —

He only looks illegal. Sergio Romo, one of my favorite players on the Giants, is playing for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic which is taking place in Arizona. What else goes on in Arizona? SB 1070 which lets police pull people over to check their citizenship. This is happening to Team Mexico during this tournament. Guys: read his shirt. He only looks illegal. 🙂

— 5 —

You mean allergies aren’t made up? I have a weird egg allergy that Daniel also shares — shots don’t do anything bad to us but we break out in a rash if we eat scrambled eggs. As a result, I can’t eat most breakfast items and I’ve managed to piss off at least one person because I can’t eat whatever they brought to church. (I barely resisted asking them if they’d like to pay for my Epi-Pens when they complained.) For that reason, this cracks me up. True, I don’t like eggs — they give me rashes that require Benadryl.

— 6 —

The Big Bang Theory. How completely awkward was the part of tonight’s episode where Sheldon, Leonard, and Howard were speaking to the middle school girls about science? I think I probably would have run screaming from the classroom and refused to do anything but be an English major. Then again, I did end up in the humanities…

— 7 —

Lent Madness. We’ve reached the Saintly Sixteen. Today was Janani Luwum vs. Jonathan Daniels. I’m kind of looking forward to the day that Ignatius of Antioch faces Hilda of Whitby so that the Lions of Rome will appear again in my Twitter.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.

7 Quick Takes: Great Big Sea, Ashes, and Baseball

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Another former WBC member. I have so much hope for my generation now that another former Westboro Baptist person is speaking out. Lauren Drain posed for the NOH8 campaign, had an AMA on Reddit, and has a book out next month on her experiences. I’m hoping it will be available for NOOK.

— 2 —

Great Big Sea. I can’t remember if I saw this on Facebook or on someone’s blog or what. It’s a version of “Children, Go Where I Send Thee” called “Come and I Will Sing You”. My husband Jon remembers singing it at Boy Scout camp. I love this YouTube video because it’s the guys of Great Big Sea doing it acoustically with just a bodhran and shakers for instruments… outside in the middle of a snow storm. You can tell they’re having fun and getting into the jamming session.

— 3 —

Ash Wednesday worship. I had to deal with the Social Security Administration down in Lodi so I snuck into a noon Eucharist for ashes because I didn’t know how much of the evening service at Metanoia that I’d get to attend. It turns out I got to attend all of it. Boo yah! We celebrated with a couple other ministries and churches in town and had a blast. I think our Pentecostal lector needs to give the Lutheran lectors some tips because he was quite… passionate about his reading. My ash cross from Metanoia was also pretty decent even after bathing Daniel and taking care of basic stuff before Jon got home.

ashtag

— 4 —

An update on Yong. Do you remember the Chinese orphan I mentioned last week for whom we were hoping to raise $100,000 so he could get to the States and have his massive facial tumor removed. ALL THE MONEY GOT RAISED. I think it only took a week too. God is awesome!

— 5 —

Speaking of orphans… We now know who is adopting Kaia: the Heaton Family! Her adoption will not be cheap so if you can, please go to their site and throw a few bucks their direction.

And then there’s Brett.

Brett

He really needs a mama. Go show him some love.

— 6 —

Baseball. Spring Training is beginning!!! I’m looking forward to the season this year. Obviously, I’m rooting for the Giants (I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area) but I’m also following Jason Motte on the Cardinals. (He’s a great pitcher and a great sport.) Apparently, there was a fan that got all hot and bothered because he (Motte) didn’t stop to sign an autograph for him. Motte’s reply (via Twitter):

Dear fan at gate that boo’ed me for not stopping to sign, My wife has a 103 temp & a screaming 5 wk old n the car. Thanks for understanding.

(I’m sitting here at $tarbux on Thursday morning trying to get these done early because I have a crazy night for the third day in a row and I happened to see the tweet.) Because, you know, all athletes exist to do is sign autographs, right?

— 7 —

Forty to Forever. The Forty Days to Forever fundraiser is underway and they still need people to be sponsoring blogs. The amazing and awesome Elizabeth of Tales from Astoria signed up and I’d like to encourage any/all of you to do the same. You can also follow on Twitter — we’re @fortytoforever.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.