Comi...err Graphic Novels

As some of you may know, I'm a reader of the comic books. While I've traditionally stuck with my superhero books (gotta love that Iron Man), I began branching out after my friend G let me borrow Watchmen. Granted I wasn't really impressed with that title (nor its cinematic counterpart), but soon afterwards I asked him for some recommendations on what other interesting reads he had in his nerd shelf. Amongst the classic Batman tales of The Long Halloween & Dark Knight Returns, he mixed in some of Vertigo's Preacher as well as the complete run of Y: The Last Man. Of all those, by the way, I would recommend Y, a story about a man and his monkey being the last males on earth (the rest had suddenly died) and the world they now live in. Or perhaps Ex Machina which has been described as West Wing meets superhero comics -- if you're into the politics.

So why am I telling you all of this? Because it is my turn to pay it forward. I was recently at a local comic book store and not content with walking out with just the newest issue of Iron Man, I asked the lady working there (yep, female) if she had any trade recommendations. She walked me around the store for nearly fifteen minutes handing me books and explaining maybe a little too much about each one; some of these I rejected, some I kept in my hands. One book in particular looked and sounded so ridiculous (and was her second highest recommendation), that I just had to get it. I think this panel explains it all:

Oh, definitely click above for the whole thing

In a story described as Homeward Bound meets Terminator, this gory-action-packed-heart-warming-pet-filled-feature is absolutely fantastic. With minimal word usage (the animals kind of talk), the beautiful art by Frank Quitely drives Grant Morrison's story about former pets that have been experimented on for militaristic purposes but have suddenly outlived their usefulness. After being freed from their holding cells due to a guilty-conscienced scientist, the animals attempt to make their way home with the government hot on their paws. But just what exactly is home?

Not all comic books are about superhero in tights fighting their archenemies on the sun, and this is a good example of that. While the animals are cute, this book is extremely gory so it's not recommended for the feint of stomach. A short three chapter book, you'll finish reading it quickly but will soon find that it lingers in your mind for a while. So if you ever accidentally find yourself in a comic book store, ask for a copy of We3 from Vertigo -- you can spend $10 in a lot of worse ways.

As a honorable mention, I was also recommended The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman featuring art from Tony Moore. If you're into zombies, this is for you. It starts out almost exactly like 28 Days Later in that a guy wakes up from a coma in a hospital, only to find out he's surrounded by zombies. The lady at the comic store told me that this came out almost at the same time as the movie, and when he saw the beginning of 28 author Kirkman started cussing at the theater screen. Whether true or not, if you've ever wanted an extended tale of survival give this a shot. The first trade that I bought for $10 has issues 1-6, but there is a Compendium available at Amazon.com that has the first 48 issues for $38... so if you think you might like it, the collection might not be the worst idea. But how do you know if this book is up your alley? Luckily, we live in the wondrous age of the internet. Behold, issue #1 for free online from the publisher!

Or, if anyone wants they can borrow from my small collection of trades or make a trek to the library. I highly encourage anyone who wants to read (but doesn't want to read) give graphic novels a shot. This is definitely a case of something being out there for everyone.

Changes & Cereal

As you may or may not have noticed, there have been some renovations to this blog. Some drastic, some subtle, all for a hopefully better Shin Splits reading experience. More color (mainly through more pictures) will be a point of emphasis going forward. After all, if a picture is in fact worth a thousand words, then I won't have to write as much. I'm still highly debating switching the always classic Verdana font to a larger nicer looking (but possibly harder to read) Trebuchet, but I'll leave it up to any loyal readers to cast their votes if their eyes start to melt. So... let's get to it!

I have switched from Honey Bunches of Oats to Total as my official cereal. The purported health benefits from their commercial advertisements in addition to those printed on the boxes have pulled me over. Once you get used to the cardboard taste and texture, it's not all that bad. I recently tried Kashi cereal for a few weeks, but I don't think I've ever had more gas buildup and expulsion at any other point in my life.

According to General Mills, Total gives a person intaking 2000 calories per day 100% helpings of Calcium, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Vitamin B6, Folic Acid, Vitmain B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Iron, and Zinc per serving. An impressive list to be sure, and one I'll stick with until they get shot down by the FDA for wild claims, not unlike another popular General Mills cereal.

Game 2: M's @ Iron Pigs

Our second game was significantly better than our first one, but yielded the same result -- a loss. Long story short, we took the lead in the fifth, lost it in the bottom of the eight, regained it in the top of the ninth, but lost it on an error in the bottom. A sharply hit double playable ball hit to the second baseman went right through his legs, so instead of a game ending groundout it netted the tying and winning runs scoring on the play.

I doubled in the first run of the game with a two-out hit to [where else] the gap between the center and right fielders, and racked up singles in my next two at bats (beating out a ground ball on one to the short stop with my absolutely blazing speed), but grounded out in my fourth at bat (the short stop charged the ball this time), and struck out with the bases loaded in the ninth.

Bats were awesome and defense was solid (minus the aforementioned miscue), so we're looking forward to our

Next game(s): Sun. June 14th, 9AM @ Whitman M.S.
&
Mon. June 22th, 6PM @ BCC (my favorite field)

Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
M. Piper	5	0	0	0	0	3	0.300
C. Ortiz	5	1	1	1	0	1	0.333
R. Davidson	5	2	3	1	0	1	0.500
D. Shin	5	1	3	1	0	1	0.625
I. Hoyos	5	2	2	3	0	1	0.222
S. Adams	5	1	4	4	0	0	0.500
K. Jones	3	1	1	0	0	2	0.286
K. Bentzoni	4	1	1	2	0	3	0.143
G. Link	4	1	1	0	0	0	0.250
E. Meyer	2	1	0	0	2	1	0.333
D. Mertens	2	1	2	1	1	0	0.667
J. Flores	3	2	1	1	1	1	0.333
Totals	48	14	19	14	4	14

2B: D Shin (2); I Hoyos (1); S Adams 2 (2); SB: S Adams (1); G Link (1); D Mertens (1);

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	ERA
G. Link	5.0	8	5	3	1	5	5.40
C. Ortiz	2.0	3	3	2	3	1	4.50
S. Adams	0.1	0	4	4	2	1	109.09
E. Meyer	1.2	2	4	2	3	1	10.78
Totals	9.0	13	16	11	9	8

On a side note, I'm getting the hankering to redesign this site. The Blogger/Google provided template has served me well thus far, but I kinda wanna spice it up. Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of spending hours staring at the computer at home after hours staring at one at work. Ooh, I did get free Denny's today! But I did have to drive up Shoreline at 5:45AM to get it though...

Zuuuuune...

You know you're a one hit wonder when...

I'm in the process of transition from Rhapsody music service to Zune. They cost roughly the same amount of money, but Microsoft let's you keep 10 songs a month with their subscription service. This will also require an upgrade in hardware, but the upcoming ZuneHD will make the change much more pleasant.

Rhapsody... sucks. Its software is buggy, songs that the company loses the licenses to errors out on you when you try and play them (but are kept in the library, to error out every time they are attempted to be played), and syncing with the clix/Rhapsody jointly created music player is an exercise in futility. It has probably only succesfully signed into my account on the first try less than ten times in the nearly two years I've been with them. I've only endured it for so long because there was no reason for me to try and re-get all of my songs with another service. But now with the ability to actually keep some of what I'm paying for? Yes please.

I've been running the Zune software for nearly a month, and the only negative I have to say about it is that I'm sorry I didn't switch to it sooner. It is literally light years ahead of the Rhapsody music experience, and if I had known that I would have made the switch much early (keepable music or not). It has probably the biggest feature Rhapsody was missing: easy song/artist search. I remember when I used to use iTunes (possibly even darker days), and was able to type "m" when I was in the library, and it would scroll to the artists that began with "m". Zune takes it one step further, where you can type more than one letter. "S" will zoom you to the artists begin with S, but now you can go right to Shania Twain with a simple "shan" (an exact command which I use quite a bit, mind you).

Mathmatecailly speaking, it might make sense for me to actually just purchase songs outright for $0.99 or whatever Amazon is charging for them, as I mainly just listen to oldies. But having the ability to sample anything and everything (and the ability to have a complete library for the eventuality of random karaoke nights) just seems like subscription service is the way to go. Now, I can have the best of both worlds.

Game Recap 1: M's @ Ravens

As per Brian's comment, I will walk you through my at bats of the first game. We ended up losing 19-10, the majority reason being that everyone on the field committed at least one error each. It was a good effort all around and despite the score there were definitely some good things to take away from the game.

I read once that really good MLB hitters could recount not only all their at bats of the day, but each pitch thrown to them. It will be easy to do that for this game as I only saw a handful. I'm going into this season with an attitude of aggressiveness at the plate, as too many of my strikeouts came from trying to work the count. The result of that was not swinging at many pitches that I should of. So far, it seems to be working.

1st AB First pitch I saw was a fastball right down the middle, so I swung accordingly. With a solid crack of the bat I shot it into right field -- right at the fielder. One and done.

2nd AB New pitcher on the hill, a real fireballer. I was leading off the inning so it would be wise for me to take a few pitches for my teammates to see what he threw. Luckily the first two were fastballs outside the zone (one low, one high and outside). I showed bunt on the 2-0 pitch to try and distract him, and it may or may not have worked as I had to back away from a tight fastball for ball 3. Taking 3-0, I let the fastball go right through the zone before getting yet another fastball for ball four, slightly inside -- walk. I was left stranded on first base when the next three batters proceeded to strike out.

3rd AB Another new pitcher, this one of a slightly lower speed (we were down 17-4 at this point). The first pitch was a fastball right down the middle which I fouled off into the net protecting the fans behind the first base dugout. The next pitch was a curveball which I wasn't planning on swinging at until I saw it break to the outside part of the plate. I served it into right field, dropping it right between the center and right fielders. As I rounded first base I noticed that neither of them had picked the ball up, so I continued running into second, beating the throw back into the infield.

4th AB The batter ahead of me had just reached on an error, when the third baseman dropped an infield popup. Same pitcher, and I noticed that the right fielder was shaded slightly toward center, and the center fielder was shaded slightly toward right -- they were on to me. First pitch I saw was a fastball slightly outside/middle of the plate, and I cut into it. I saw the ball go screaming over the first baseman's head, fair down the right field line. With the right fielder shaded slightly towards center, I thought that I had a sure triple. Sprinting right out of the batter's box, I rounded first and second and was about to start slowing up towards third base when the third base coach starting waving his arms in a circular motion -- he wanted me to go home. I dug into my reserve energy and rounded third base -- except I missed the bag completely. I contemplated about stopping, but at that point I thought, "screw it; when else was I going to have a chance for a home run? Hopefully nobody saw it." I looked towards the field to try and pick up where the ball was to see if I would need to slide or not, and saw it trickling towards the third baseman. I crossed home plate for my first career home run. There was no throw over to third for an appeal.

Shout outs go to Brian and G, who came out and showed some support. Despite it also being his birthday I'm going to take half of G's credit away though, as he left moments before my HR because he was "getting cold".

Next game: Sun. June 14th, 9AM @ Chief Sealth H.S.

Batters	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	K	AVG
M. Piper	5	1	3	1	0	1	0.600
I. Hoyos	4	1	0	0	1	1	0.000
R. Davidson	3	0	1	2	0	1	0.333
S. Adams	3	0	0	0	1	0	0.000
E. Meyer	4	1	2	2	0	1	0.500
C. Ortiz	4	2	2	0	0	0	0.500
D. Shin	3	2	2	2	1	0	0.667
K. Jones	4	1	1	1	0	2	0.250
D. Mertens	4	1	2	2	0	1	0.500
J. Osnaya	2	0	1	0	0	1	0.500
K. Bentzoni	3	1	0	0	1	1	0.000
Totals	39	10	14	10	4	9

HR: D Shin (1); 2B: M Piper (1); D Shin (1);

Pitchers	IP	H	R	ER	BB	K	ERA
J. Osnaya	5.0	0	17	0	6	3	0.00
C. Ortiz	2.0	0	2	0	3	1	0.00
Totals	7.0	0	19	0	9	4

Monday Drive

Out and about on a nice Monday drive in my oversized (and compactor eqipped) chariot. Currently in the U-District, a block away from my college days apartment.

New Season!

Another summer means that another season of baseball us about to begin. Technically this should be our second game today, but despite having a fantastic fan turnout of twenty-ish people (usually we have one or two) the umpires did not show up to our first game.

Goals for this season:

• Bat better than .300. I ended last season with a 0.304 average, so I'm just looking for any sort of improvement.
• Steal five bases. Last year I set a goal of stealing eight bases and stole... one. Baby steps [though, not on the basepaths, that would require a full sprint].
• Commit zero errors. I still think defense is the strongest part of my game. Now that I'm playing outfield, I'll have more chances to make errors so we'll see how this goes. I've worked hard over the offseason to improve my arm, we'll also see how this works out.
• Strike out less than last year. I struck out at the same rate over the past two seasons, so I'm going to try protect better with two strikes.
• Hit one home run. I didn't have an extra base hit at all last year, but I had been hitting the gym pretty regularly a few months back... maybe it will even out?

As always, I invite anyone who can to come out to one of my games. I may or may not reward you with some sort of fooding...

Today's game:
Steve Cox Memorial Field in White Center, 7PM.