One of you complained that I haven't updated this site in months. The running excuse for that has been that the scanner broke, which is true (and when it's fixed I promise more pictures will appear on this site). However, the real reason this site hasn't changed is that I've been busy melting my brain in front of the TV every single night for the past few months. Back in August Keri gave me Tivo for my Birthday and we've been entranced ever since. As recently as four months ago I used to tell people that the only thing I watched on TV was sports (A's games mostly) and that I hated watching TV because of the commercials. Well, Tivo changed that. Without commercials most hour long TV shows are only 35 to 40 minutes, and I can program Tivo to record anything. It will search the program guide for any topic or person I ask it to look for. The fast forward, rewind, and pause buttons work three times better than VCR controls so I will tape a two hour long show even if I'm only interested in five minutes. It works great for catching things like Ozzy's classic guest spot on Conan the other night. Another thing we used Tivo for was to record every single episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that FX played in order from season 1 through season 5 this past Fall. Keri and I believe that Buffy, along with the Sopranos, is the best show on TV. Keri also catches every episode of all three Law and Orders. Then we watch 24, The West Wing, and that new show Philly is good. There are always high quality shows on ESPN Classic too. Then I scan all the comedy stuff like The Simpsons, South Park, Sea Lab, Dave Attell, etc. My eyeballs hurt when I go outside. Anyway, I give this latest obsession another month or so and then maybe I'll get productive or something. Some of you may remember I was just as obsessed with netflix.com when we got a DVD player.

Yes, I am getting fat. Last year when I moved up to a size 36 waist I told myself I'd never buy 38in. pants, but that's what I'm wearing now. Instead of going on a diet I decided to pump iron about 5-10 minutes every day. This won't make me smaller, but I'm hoping my chest size may catch up with my belly so I don't get too lopsided or egg shaped.

Speaking of big bellies, for those of you who have seen Keri, that's not a beer gut she has going, she's pregnant. It's a girl due in early March. The "office" that used to be Probe Headquarters, is slowly being transformed into a baby room. Her name will be Lydia Armine Muentz.

In other news I'm pretty excited about the fact that we got a new King Size fridge. This has greatly improved the quality of life around here. We loaded up on frozen pizza, pies, and other cold goods. Better yet, we have a beer fridge in the garage now! Which reminds me… Party at our house on New Years Eve!

PUNK SHOW in Livermore, I saw that there were actually going to be some bands playing near my home and I made plans with my old friend J.D. to go to this show at the Pine Street Bar, even though I didn't think I was too into the bands. Instead, I was floored, totally caught off guard. Strychnine, The Oozies, Subincision, and Shut The Fuck Up played. Two years ago Keri told me I heckled the Oozies at the Cocodrie, but they completely ripped the place apart last Friday. I change my tune. More surprisingly, I really liked Subincision, I remember seeing them at Gilman about three years ago and not liking them at all. I think they must have been locked in their practice space in the time since then because I haven't heard a thing about them, but they were really tight and putting a twist on classic punk. Similarly, although I did like Strychnine years ago, I don't remember them being anywhere near as good as they are now. S.T.F.U. was good too. I guess certain factions of the punk scene have continued to grow after I retreated to the quiet married life in suburbia. Before that night in Livermore, the one band that really floored me this year was the Fleshies. Other than them, the only shows I've looked forward to were my friends' bands in Sacramento. I saw Zeke up there a couple of months ago too, but they were just okay.

BOOKS: One great thing about being a high school sub teacher is all the time I have to read. John Lescroart is my new favorite author. I started with "Nothing But the Truth" and liked that so much that I got another one of his. Then I realized they were all part of a long series of books featuring the same characters so I started at the beginning and I'm about six books into the series now. I also recommend Ben Foster (Weasel)'s new book, "Like Hell". It's pretty much autobiographical, but the names have been changed to protect the guilty. The opposite of that book is the one Craig got me for my birthday, the Motley Crue autobiography "The Dirt". It was equally disturbing/amusing and pathetic/impressive. The writer did an excellent job putting it together. I kept reading even though I thought I didn't give a shit. Give the band credit for not holding back.

Teacher job: With a kid on the way I decided to go ahead and get my full teaching credential. Five years ago I was just 18 weeks of student teaching away from getting a teaching credential from Chapman University, but I was too involved with the Probe to finish. I went back to Chapmanl this Fall and they had added another class as a requirement so I took that. However, I still can't start my student teaching as planned because Cal Poly informs me that, since I graduated back in 1990, the waiver I earned at that time has expired. If I could actually find my old copy of it Chapman would accept it, but Cal Poly won't issue new ones after six years. That means I have to take a five hour SSAT test and then a Praxis test to prove that I haven't forgotten anything since getting my diploma. The total fees are over $200 so I can't just go in blind and hope I pass. Plus, the next test date is in March just two days after Keri is due to give birth so… I'm not happy about the whole thing, but I'll eventually go the teaching route - unless someone comes along and hands me a job as scouting director for the A's or something like that.

Speaking of getting fat and being a teacher. A sophmore girl said to me today, "Do you watch the Man Show? You look like Jimmy Kimmel!" I couldn't help laughing when she said it. When I first became a substitute all of the students said that I looked like "that dude on Airwolf who flies the helicopter". Over thirty times, in several different schools, I was told the same thing. It was bizarre. The show must have been in it's prime or in heavy syndication at the time because it got to the point that when someone said, "Do you know who you look like?" I'd say, "Yeah, I know, I look like the guy that flies the helicopter on Airwolf." At the time I never watched TV at all so I never knew what they were talking about until several years later when I saw the True Hollywood Story of Jan Michael Vincent. On that show they said that, towards the end, Jan Michael Vincent was so drunk and wasted that they had to shoot all of his scenes in the morning because by noon he was incoherant. Many times they had to have people holding him upright as he said he is lines. Maybe that's the resemblance the kids saw in me. At the time I usually went out two or three times during the week. I'd often get just a couple hours of sleep before going in to sub. I remember sometimes being so hung over that I had to recline against the chalkboard just to keep standing. One morning, after a night of about ten free pints of Sierra Nevada, a kid said to me in first period class. "Are you drunk? You smell like beer." I told him, "No! but I work in a bar and I was there past 2 AM last night." Which was true because that's when I was booking bands at Hap's. What saved me from becoming a raging alcoholic was that I never felt like drinking off a hangover. I always loaded up on greasy food and coffee the day after drinking. When I reached my early thirties I started to need two days of recovery before my next binge. Today, I can't handle drinking more than once a week. On the other six days I eat a lot of greasy, fatty foods and drink coffee. Hence the resemblance to Jimmy Kimmel. At least I don't look the way Jan Michael Vincent looks today. That guy is the definition of the term "shell of his former self." So I'm fine with Jimmy Kimmel resemblance, and the new softer, dough-ier, version of myself.

UP YOUR DINGUS WITH A CROWBAR Bay Area Yankee fans. The Oakland A's have the cheapest ticket prices and the best tailgating in Major League Baseball, but you only show up to root for a team that represents everything that is wrong with baseball today. People on the West Coast who wear Yankee caps and jerseys aren't really baseball fans. It's fashion, the winning team. The Yankees are fashionable because they've spent millions of dollars to become so. I do love to hate the Yankees. I really don't mind that the Yankees $950 million TV contract gives them an incredibly unfair advantage over smaller market teams like the A's. I enjoy rooting for the underdog. It makes it that much sweeter when they do win. When you look at the team economics, it is amazing that the A's were even competitive against the Yankees, much more that they had a better season record in a much tougher division. Every single year the Yankees can afford to sign ANY free agent on the market. If one of their starting pitchers goes down they just sign the top free agent on the market for 15 million a year. It's a joke. The starting three pitchers on Yankees during the division play-offs this year made a combined total of more than 45 million last year, meanwhile, the A's starting three combined to earn less than a million. However, the biggest advantage the Yankees have is their bullpen (The Yankee bullpen alone is paid almost double the entire A's starting line-up.) Not only do the Yankees pick up the biggest middle relief free agents on the market every year, they can also afford to give several different low profile relief pitchers multi-million dollar contracts while other teams have a hard time holding on to even a single closer. Roger Clemons was routinely pulled in the sixth inning all season. He never even pitched a complete game. On any other team he'd be lucky to get 15 wins, but with the multi-million dollar bullpen he looks like a Cy Young winner. Of course, Yankee fans will point out that a few of the Yankees biggest stars, primarily Derek Jeter and Bernie Williams, came up through the teams own minor league system. The only difference with the Yankees is that they can afford to pay their players whatever amount is necessary to keep their stars. Jeter would have pulled an A-Rod if he were on just about any other team. No player has ever left the Yankees because New York couldn't afford to keep them. Not only that, but players in New York get better exposure and endorsement deals than anywhere else in the league. Then they get to play in the weakest division in baseball with a lopsided schedule. It's an unfair playing field. The Yankees have every advantage they need to get them to the World Series each year. There is no "Yankee mystique," they are nothing more than the best team money can buy. This is fine with me. The Yankees are a fun team to hate. The Yankees have great hometown fans and they have a great history for people who grew up in New York. I don't have a problem with that. The only thing I have a problem with is that when I go to my Bar Area Target store, I find a selection of five different Yankee caps to choose from, several Yankee T-shirts, and absolutely no A's merchandice whatsoever. It's wrong. The Yankees are fashion. They are the only pro sports team that has hats available at clothing stores like Miller's Outpost. You can't even watch an hour of Mtv without seeing a Yankee cap. Out of 30 teams the A's had the second best record in Major League Baseball last year. There was only one other team in the bottom half of the pay scale that played above .500 and yet thousands of Bay Area residents willingly pay money to be Yankee whores. "I always liked the Yankees." Then how come none of you were wearing those jerseys in the 80's when the Yankees always finished in 4th place? Because you're a whore that's why, the Yankees bought you just like they bought their players. In the 2000 playoffs it made me sick that one out of every five fans at the Oakland Coliseum were rooting for the New York Yankees. The best thing about 2001 is that the A's beat the Yankees SIX times in a row at home. Each time the number of Yankee fans in the crowd got smaller until by the time the play-offs came around, and the A's won the first two in New York, there were something like six or seven times less Yankee fans at the Oakland Coliseum than there were the year before. In 2000 there was a Yankee fan in every row. At the 2001 playoffs there were some entire sections without any Yankee fans at all. The people who were only there to join in the spectacle stayed home. It was a welcome change and now that the Yanks lost the World Series, maybe it will continue on in 2002. Now that Giambi plans to sell his soul and go to the Yanks it won't be the end of the world. I'm even sort of hoping that Beane doesn't make any big trades to replace him if he does go because I would look forward to seeing how well Mario Valdez would do as a replacement. He's at least as good as Tino Martinez. And a good season for Eric Byrnes (possibly the fastest man in baseball) would be at least as good as the poor season Damon had last year. Seattle won't be anywhere near as good as they were last year. The A's can still win it! I'm looking forward to spring training.

Okay, I wrote this yesterday, but today it's official, Jason Giambi left the A's for the Yankees. He's already given himself the corporate hair-cut and shaved off his facial hair as team policy requires. Oh yeah, no more music, posters or parties in the team clubhouse. He's no longer a team leader, just another one of Steinbrenners lapdogs. The sad thing is that he probably already had the best years he'll ever have as a baseball player while with the Oakland A's, but with the prestige of New York he will become more popular than ever. It's very much like when a great band leaves the homespun indy record label they started from to join a Major Label. They get the money, recognition, and fame that they always craved, but they pay the price in personal freedom, there's a new approach, and pretty soon all that remains before getting dropped is the image. I don't blame A's ownership. They offered Giambi 10% of the team's total worth. Giambi's new contract with New York gives him roughly 2% of the teams current market value. If they Yankees were to offer Giambi the same percentage of their team that the A's did, his contract would have been for 80 million dollars a year. Steinbrenner doesn't want to win more, he just has more money to work with.

In 1972 the A's Reggie Jackson became the first player in Major League History to grow facial hair. Instead of fighting it, A's owner Charlie Finley offered a $50 bonus to every player on the team who grew a mustache. Every player did, and they grew sideburns and long hair too. Rollie Fingers even developed his trademark handle bar mustache. (At the time sideburns, mustaches, and hair past the collar were forbid by baseball owners.) Top that off with bright green and yellow uniforms and white cleets (The A's are still the only team in baseball who wear white cleats.) and an anti-establishment West Coast attitude, the A's were the most colorful team in sports history. Then they go ahead and win three World Series titles in a row!!! That's great team history. Everyone knows that the Yankees have won more World Series titles than any team in baseball. However, few people realize that the A's are second on that list.

Bay Area Boston Red Sox fans can bite the big dingleberry too. The only good thing about the Boston Red Sox is that their team store sells "Yankees Suck" T-shirts. Other than that they have to be one of the most pathetic organizations in baseball. I used to think Fenway park was okay until I found out that they only sell LIGHT beer at the ball park. Jesus Christ! Do you even wonder why baseball is no longer the national pastime? Boston, home of one of our great founding fathers, Sam Adams, and they don't even sell his beer.

By the way, yes, the Oakland Coliseum offers a wide variety of different micro-brews. Go A's!