Zero to sixty in 0.1 seconds

Yesterday was another of the hated five-game umpiring shifts. It was also at one of the fields that has no shade. It also involved two of my least favorite teams to umpire. They both had doubleheaders. It was a recipe for a meltdown.

As meltdowns go, it was pretty tame; still, I'm not proud of my blowing up and I'm also not saying the players involved didn't deserve some shouting at. Mostly I point to it as a reason five-game shifts are generally not a good idea.

It wasn't really a big deal to start with. There is a notation in the rules of this league that if someone hits an over-the-fence home run, they don't have to run the bases, we just count the runs and move on. That's all well and good in theory, but in practice when there are already runners aboard they too just leave the field rather than come around to score. So in game four of the day, someone on this team I don't like very much hits one out with runners on and doesn't run the bases. Later on they belatedly complain that I have the score wrong, they say they have one more than my tally shows. We trace that to the aforementioned homer, which I tallied as a three-run shot and they claimed was a slam. I let them have the run, because this tends to happen: baserunners see the ball hit and just leave the field, while I watch the ball to make sure it clears the fence, then tally the runs, and if one or more runners is already in the dugout by that point they don't get counted.

I'm six hours-plus into the shift by this point, they're pissy, and I have no patience. "This is what happens when you choose not to run the bases," I say, loudly, in response to more bitching. "Someone leaves the field before they're counted! That's the risk you run!" This is misinterpreted, of course, as me telling them none of their runs-on-homers count and there's arguments about how that's not how it worked last time and it starts going in circles.

After the inning, I go to their dugout again to try and smooth things over and better explain, but instead three of the team's number double down on hostility. "Show me in the rulebook where it says we have to run the bases!" "You should just know how many runners are on all the time!" "None of the other umps ever take runs off the board because of this!" So instead of smoothing things over I shout back. "This is how you want to play it? I've been out here for 6½ hours, imagine how much patience I have for shit like this! Just don't leave the damn field before you're counted and there's no problem, you got it?!"

I considered going to the adjacent field and swapping games with the new guy who's working that field, but dismiss the thought as unprofessional and unfair to him. I stuck it out. One of the problem guys hit another home run later on and turned to me and pointed to the fence and said "that's a home run," condescending as he walked to the dugout. In their second game he was on base when someone else hit one out and did the same thing, and I said, "Dude, are you trying to get thrown out of the game? 'Cause I'll oblige you." He shut up and later came up to me and pretended he was only saying those things to make sure I had the run count right, which is undermined by the fact that he never mentioned the run count, but hey, he's trying to smooth things over in his own CYA kind of way and I just want the game to be fucking over, so I say fine, all good, play on.

There was also shouting and hostility about a play involving the infield fly rule. This same team was batting, runners at 1st and 2nd with no outs, and the batter popped one up. "Infield fly, batter's out!" The defense let the ball drop and the baserunners—not knowing the infield fly rule, apparently—try to advance and the defense—not knowing the infield fly rule, apparently—try to claim a double play because they threw the ball to first and stepped on it, thinking they got an out because the runner didn't tag up. "Not how it works," I said, and explained that all the infield fly rule means is that the batter is out and thus the runners aren't forced to move. That's all. Play is live, runners can do what they like, and tagging up would only apply if the ball had been caught. More yelling, more bitching, more overheard comments from the dugout about how I cheated them out of something. More of my patience worn away forever.

We also ran way late in the latter half of the day because of the other team I don't like to ump, who is incapable of starting on time or moving the game along at a normal pace, which is bad enough when they only have one game and is twice as bad when they play two. This is mostly because of one person, who is on the autism spectrum, but everyone who's been around a while knows that trying to rush them along is counter-productive because you risk a shouty delay of anger and sometimes crying. The opposing team, understandably, wants their whole time and doesn't want me to cut the game short because of the other side; I think that's a fair request, even though I would prefer to end the game on time anyway as a disincentive to that delaying team to keep pretending that it's fine to make things run late. So instead of wrapping things up at 7:30 like my colleague on the other field was, I still had half a game to go and wasn't done and leaving the field until nearly 8:30pm, tired, hungry, frustrated, sunburned, and a little upset with myself for losing my cool.

Wasn't entirely bad, though. The earlier portion of the day involved interactions with teams and players I do like, so for two games I had a good time. Third game was still OK. Wheels fell off after that.

I'm not on again until next Sunday as summer schedules are starting to wrap up, though I do have a message I've yet to answer about filling in for someone for one game tonight. Haven't decided yet. I can always use another $50, and it is just one, but I still have the headache from yesterday going. We'll see.

Tagged Umping, Softball, Posted on August 10, 2026 at 4:42PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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SNW 403: Human Best Friend

Does anyone know what I had tattooed on my face?

This week's episode of Strange New Worlds actually isn't terrible. Part of me does hate it, but it's the part that has been disappointed by the writing in so many streaming era and 21st century film installments of the Star Trek franchise; here we again have an episode that has little to no depth to it, another junk food meal of empty calories. On the other hand, I did find it entertaining despite my qualms. It's very much like last season's "Wedding Bell Blues" in that regard, though not as steeped in the series mythology and a whole lot more derivative.

Had I known in advance what they were going for with this one—it's a stoner comedy that borrows heavily from lowbrow films The Hangover and Harold & Kumar Go Wherever They Went; it could be titled "Dude, Where's My Shuttlecraft?"—expectations would have been lower than low given what came last season, in which case this post would be about how I was pleasantly surprised by the not-terribleness of it. But even though I kind of liked it, it does nothing to assuage my fears that the rest of the series is going to be frustrating. Especially knowing that both this season and the abbreviated next season was all either in production or the can before any of the flawed and troubling season three had aired (dropped? What is the proper terminology for the release of streaming internet TV?). I suspect that no one in this writers' room ever came to any realizations that last year had real problems before it was too late and all was completed. Thematic depth? Nah. Ethical quandaries? Meh, we might touch on them vaguely. Dumb humor? Oh, yeah, that's our jam, and if we can cheapen what comes later in the timeline, so much the better.

There is plenty of dumb humor and cheapening what comes later in this one, to be sure, but in large part—not entirely—I am choosing to overlook it because there's some fun to be had.

Let's get into it.

See full post: "SNW 403: Human Best Friend"...

Tagged Star Trek, TV, Culture, Posted on August 8, 2026 at 8:32PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Stuff other people said

A few quotes from other places on the interwebs before I head out for the evening...

• "It’s like hiring your divorce lawyer to become the marriage counselor for the entire country. And apparently his confirmation has come down to two departing Republican senators saying, ‘Look... we’re fine with most of the corruption. We just need this one piece of corruption to go away in writing.’"

  —John Fugelsang, on the nomination of Todd Blanche for Attorney General being advanced out of committee in the Senate when Thom Tillis and John Cornyn accepted a meaningless written statement from Blanche saying there was no "slush find" for Felon47 to pay people off with.

• "The two senators are likely to puff out their chests and claim that they extracted a material concession. They held out, they made the White House sweat, they got it in writing. It is a tidy story, and every part of it that matters is wrong. They got nothing. Blanche gave up nothing. And the fund they think they killed is no less alive today than it was the day before Blanche put his name to that order."

  —Harry Litman, on the same subject.

• "It’s just one more thing that the next Democratic president’s Secretary of Un-Fucking All That Shit is going to have to deal with."

  —Jeff Tiedrich, on something that completely escaped my notice before today: Felon47’s further destruction of White House grounds to build a helipad, and then ordering the work to be redone because he didn't like the look of it, in another absurd waste of taxpayer money on a vanity project.

• "There are days when it genuinely feels almost masochistic to keep exposing ourselves to the relentless barrage of terrible news. At the same time, if we are members of a functioning society, we have to remain connected to what’s happening because that’s the only way we can respond in meaningful ways."

  —Mary Trump, articulating why I and others continue to follow the news when it's so goddamn maddening and depressing.

• "The fascinating question isn’t just who the Republican nominee might be. It’s whether Donald will ever acknowledge that anyone else deserves to lead. I don’t believe he can. His identity depends entirely on convincing himself that he’s indispensable."

  —Mary Trump again, responding to a question about whether Felon47 will support someone else running for the Republican nomination in 2028.

• "It reminds me of an old Star Trek episode. A historian attempts to stabilize a troubled planet by modeling it after Nazi Germany. Eventually he realizes what he’s created is monstrous and wants to stop it, but the people around him drug him, prop him up behind a microphone, and simply replay old recordings while pretending he’s still leading. As absurd as that sounds, I can imagine something similar happening with Donald. Whether it’s a fake Oval Office, carefully staged appearances, or simply limiting his public exposure, the people around him have every incentive to preserve the illusion for as long as possible because their own power depends on maintaining it."

  —Mary Trump one more time, scratching the nerd itch while talking politics, responding to the idea that Felon47 is becoming a mere figurehead as his dementia worsens.

• "The American League Central is like its own pocket universe. You’ve got five flawed teams bouncing around like lottery balls in that glass ball."

  —Joe Posnanski, writing about the just-passed Major League Baseball trade deadline and how that division is anyone's to win. Same could be said for the AL West, BTW, though there it's three underachieving teams instead of five.

• "I don’t think there was an Iranian cyberattack."

  —Felon47, the alleged President of the United States, after being shown voluminous evidence that there has been a cyberattack across the infrastructure of multiple states by Iran. Rest easy, America.

• "They’re Bizarro-world spidermen, whose great power confers no responsibility."

  —Cory Doctorow, on Google and credit card giants that enable fraud and, in Google's case, aid and abet fraudsters by purposely enshittifying their search algorithms.

• Finally, I give you the entirety of Andy Borowitz's latest bit of satire:

  FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY (The Borowitz Report)—Calling the situation “unacceptable to the people of my state,” on Tuesday Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear demanded to know whether or not Senator Rand Paul was brain-dead.

  “I have viewed disturbing video taken last week in the US Senate in which Senator Paul appears to be brain-dead,” Beshear told reporters. “As governor, I demand that he inform Kentuckians about his status—if, in fact, he is capable of human speech.”

  Beshear said he became “alarmed” when he viewed the video, in which Paul exhibited “brain activity consistent with that of a coma patient or Tommy Tuberville.”

  The governor’s announcement was only the latest controversy to embroil Paul, just days after shocking evidence emerged that he may have been created in a lab leak.

All for now. Gotta run.

Tagged Politics, President VonClownstick, Baseball, Posted on August 5, 2026 at 5:28PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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SNW 402: The Griffin Incident

The latest episode of Strange New Worlds is another "genre of the week" installment, this time the genre is "horror flick." It's not the first time Star Trek has gone this route, exactly, but it is more overtly in-your-face in terms of horror tropes and scenes of mutilation. Generally, I am most definitely not a fan of such things, and while I don't exactly hate it here, it's not good, either.

Which isn't to say the episode itself isn't good taken as a whole. It's...well, it's hit-and-miss, like most SNW efforts. There are some semi-interesting character bits, and some things that may or may not move a season arc along, but once again we have a script that wouldn't have been deemed ready for production under Gene Coon or Ira Behr.

Let’s get into it (spoilers and very nerdy nitpicks ahead):

See full post: "SNW 402: The Griffin Incident"...

Tagged Star Trek, TV, Posted on August 4, 2026 at 5:26PM   |   Permalink   |     |  

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