Bad Ideas

"I wanna be good
I wanna be great
I wanna be everything except for your mistake"
--Your Mistake, Sister Hazel

Had a nice long weekend and certainly enjoyed my fair share of good things in those three-plus days, but was unfortunately forced to deal with a bad idea or two along the way. Bad civic planning in the hamlet of Carson, CA led to a ridiculous hour-long trip out of the parking lot at Home Depot Center following Saturday night's Galaxy game and ensuing fireworks show. I'm not sure how new stadia are built without a good idea of how to efficiently get people in and out of the enormous parking lots that surround said structures. The HDC is a beautiful bastion of American soccer, probably the best soccer stadium in the country, but its parking situation leaves plenty to be desired. Eric drove us out there, sat in all that traffic getting out, then drove back to Carson to hang out with his buddy Ryan, who played a great game for the Earthquakes in defeat. El Pescadito got two more goals for the home side, spearheading a 2-1 victory for the Galaxy and securing their hold on first place.
Bad idea number two was chronologically bad idea number one for me, but since the construction of the parking lot happened well before my Saturday night activities, I'm listing them in this order instead. After a lovely time at Chris Rose's party, three of us headed back to my buddy Mike's house in Venice, arriving there shortly after midnight. Since I had enjoyed somewhere around seven total hours of sleep the previous week, going home and sleeping would certainly have been the best decision. Not such a good decision was going out to Circle Bar until 1:30, getting a ton of good Chinese food at 2 and not getting home until well after 3. Sleep is far too valuable to be playing around with it like that. Thankfully I was able to sleep in until 10 or so Sunday morning; otherwise I would not be functioning right now.
Bad idea number three actually happened before either of these two things, but it was only this morning that it affected me. A guy at the gym was actually wearing zubaz pants today. You know those tiger-striped looking things? Yeah, seriously. I don't think I can even say anything else about this. Zubaz?
Eric Gagne's streak ended last night, which is definitely a bummer, but it finally allows people to look back at what an amazing accomplishment 84 saves in a row really is. There's no other record in baseball (or probably in any sport, for that matter) that sees such a tremendous gap between first and second place. Gagne's 84 in a row exceeds Tom Gordon's 54 by a whopping 56%. As impressive as they are, Orel Hershiser's consecutive innings (1.7% more than Drysdale's), Cal Ripken's games played (23.6% over Lou Gehrig) and Joe D's hitting streak (27.3% higher than Wee Willie Keeler and Pete Rose) don't even compare in dominance. Even some of the more impressive single-season records (the only career record that measures up is Nolan Ryan's strikeouts--35.7% up on Clemens, but shrinking every fifth day) don't measure up: Bonds' homers (+4.3%) and Rickey's steals (+10.2%) are just two examples. It's an awesome accomplishment, that's all.
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