Fries and Ketchup: Mesmerized by numbers, music, and moving pictures

The weekly column where we and mention anything we missed in the last week (or longer). It's a lot like those moments when you're out of ketchup, at a fine fast food restaurant, but lack the energy to go and get more; so you scrape away at the dregs on your hamburger wrapper, until all you can see is silver aluminum foil. It's classy, yet unrefined.

Langston:
Entering Friday, the Dodgers have lost four games in a row which included a pummeling at the hands of the hapless Pirates. With only a couple games, it's safe to assume that this is not the best time for a team to play it's worst ball of the season. However this current slide ties their longest losing streak of the season, and the fact that they have only lost more than three games in a row twice, over the course of a long season bodes well for any playoff team.

And they did get swept by the Padres, but it was a two game series. This late season decline might also relegate them to the wild card spot in the NL, but they have been tied or have been in first place in the NL West for 153 of 159 games. A lot of these losses have been placed on a lack of discipline by the batters, a tired pitching rotation, and the fact that they still have no ace. But all eight regular starters have at least 50 walks each and they have Randy Wolf. The Dodgers play like champions when he is on the mound, winning 22 games out of his 33 starts.

You could take the preceding as a list of reasons why the Dodgers will fall short in the playoffs. Or you could look at it as a catalog of rebuttals for all of those arguments. When weighing the two options, I'll go with the latter. But what can I say? When it comes to the Dodgers, I am hopelessly optimistic. It doesn't help my endless optimism that the supposed "most dangerous hitter" of the lineup is no longer the only bat to be scared of and may not even be the second or third best hitter in the lineup.  
  
Teach: I found this mesmerizing....like blues rock found its way into some British spy flick.



Buy This Album:
As Deckfight pointed out, every blogger has one of "those" weeks. Well due to my new job as a loan shark, I too am having one of those weeks and it has greatly condensed my time to scourge the nets for the next best album. I did buy a couple of albums this week. Though they have either been covered already, failed to live up to expectations, or fell just short of the "must hear/buy" label. So I decided to leave you with this skate video. Not so much for the skating but moreso for the soundtrack. It features the band Truman Sparks and a medley of their songs "Juan the sperm whale" and "Trog."