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Pirate Radio Vol. 5 Episode 2 – “Preview”

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Reverend Damian Baker

Reverend Damian Baker

As you may remember (or not since it’s been so long), we already recorded our first digitalflood Pirate Radio for the year (Vol. 5 Episode 1) back in January of 2009. Because of that show, this new and forthcoming Pirate Radio show will be labeled “Vol. 5 Episode 2”. Hopefully this explanation will avoid confusion when you see it up on df.com in some nine days and counting down. I didn’t want you to think I was pulling some cheesy Star Wars hokey release a later episode before the earlier episode garbage.

I’m happy to announce Vol. 5 Episode 2 will be guest hosted by none other than Reverend Damian Baker. The good Reverend’s profile can be found on DF Staff Page #2. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts M’Weezy will not be available, but all that means is there will be no one to reel me in. As such, this should be an episode to remember. Throw in the fact that the good Reverend always shows up with a few musical surprises and you can for sure understand this is an episode you’ll need to have in your df Pirate Radio MP3 collection. As I always say, “Let’s get into it!”

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About The Applefest Thing

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Applefest 2009Every year my hometown of Warwick, NY holds Applefest on the first Sunday of October and this year was its twenty first anniversary. Applefest is a traditional community fair and festival to celebrate the fall harvest. Warwick’s main harvest crop is apples. Hence the name Applefest. This year rolled in the biggest crowd I can remember in five years. I have to admit, I thought that Applefest had jumped the shark and was doomed to be forgotten, but for whatever reason the crowd turn out was at least 30,000 people. One economist theory is that a bad economy makes for people doing less foreign/long distance vacation travel meaning they do more local spending in a 30 mile radius  and it certainly seems feasible given what I saw at Applefest a week ago. This meant for one day the Town of Warwick, NY’s population (~35k people) was doubled and shoved into the tiny Village of Warwick. The Village is at the town’s center and where most of the festival takes place. Cars were lined up down Route 94 into New Jersey and over the mountain down Route 17 to NYC. Admittedly traffic going into Northern and Western Orange County was light so clearly the metro crowd was in full effect.

The unfortunate downside is the festival at that level of attendance in such a small village results in it being very hard to enjoy with two young children. It’s hard to move around with a stroller and my eight year old daughter doesn’t have the patience to wait in line twenty minutes for a ride or forty minutes for a bag of popcorn. So our trip through the festival was very brief in the form of two vital favorite family stops.

First we got gyros down on Church Street. Every year this great gyro stand setups and make the best lamb gyros ever. They are simply amazing. The price is forty dollars though (not exactly priceless). Pretty steep for three gyros. Then we went over to Stanley Deming Park on the other side of the Village so my older daughter could ride the carnival rides. Twenty five dollars later, three hours, and some six rides (yes I said only six rides in three hours– absolutely packed) everybody was cranky, hot, and tired. So we called it quits.

I like Applefest, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s a great way to support local community organizations, raise funds for volunteer emergency services and non-profits, draw crowds to the local agri-entertainment venues (orchards, farms, etc…), and expose people to the cheeky preppy Village shops that is Warwick (a God to honest amazing feat in a world filled with horrid big boxes and corporate owned chains). It is hard though to really enjoy it like in the lower volume years of the last part of the decade. I guess if sacrificing one day in Warwick for the masses to support the community is the sacrifice I have to make– then so be it, but I won’t lie that I miss being able to get through the carnival and get gyros in two hours.

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Double Trouble

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This morning I woke up and found my left shoulder mildly dislocated. I’m not sure how it happened, but I been noticing that over the last two weeks my left arm has become more and more sore. From what I can tell, I’ve been favoring my right side. This has begun to stress my left side and in particular my left upper arm. There’s a lot of strange popping/rubbing in my shoulder that I don’t remember. By the end of my work shift my left arm was in more discomfort/pain than my right. That in itself is concerning.  I’ll try to speak with the orthopedist tomorrow, but I’m sure it’s fatigue related and that I may have unfortunately discovered an existing issue I just never knew about.

I spent some of today working with JDiddy during break time bringing up a new Linux LAMP (web page) server. For those of you who know me, this will come as no big surprise. I’m a huge Linux nerd and love bringing up/working on servers. We’re trying to get him a decent platform to launch his new web site on and it’s given me a chance to coach him on setting the system up. It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to coach any one at any thing in such a regimented manner and honestly it reminded me how much I like teaching others new things especially when they’re excited about what they’re learning. Good stuff. I can’t wait to see what JDiddy does with the new site and I’m pretty excited to pass on the new skills I’ve learned over the last six months building this one.

Fall is definitely here in downstate New York. The morning and nighttime temperature is in the low 40s. I came out to frost on the Stang this evening. I can definitely feel a cold draft drifting through my walls. I had to cave and turn on the heat earlier last week. It’s just too cold this year (some five degrees on average) to not do that. The summer was very mild (some ten degrees on average) than last year so it would make sense that fall/winter will follow suit. If that holds true though we’re definitely in for a very cold wet (read: lots of snow and ice) winter. My hope is my shoulder heals before the major snow falls in December.Pirate mime

Minor issue with my plan to roll out Pirate Radio– my main hard drive is slowly failing. I’m hoping it holds out long enough to kick out a new episode, but if not I do have a spare (though arguably slower and smaller IDE verse the existing SATA) hard drive to fall back on. I rue the thought of reinstalling Windows XP and all my applications, but it is what it is at this point. Quick flashback, over the summer it appears I may have run my PC too hard during 90 degree temperatures and cooked the hard drive platter. Not good, but the HD is some ten year old (bought in 2001) and way beyond the eight year meantime to failure average. Again– it is what it is.

Finally, today’s “Random Picture of the Day” is a pirate mime. I had no clue until my recent search of the WikiCommons that such a beast existed, but here he(?) is in all his wondrous mime glory. He would say “ARRR!” but he’s a mime. Alas, he can say nothing. He can merely glare at you with his buggy eyes and wave his dull short short in anger. It’s sad really and I’m sure Sally Struthers will soon start some sort of charity to help pirate mimes out. For now though– he suffers in silence while we mock him over the Internet. We rock so much indeed.

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My Beloved Mets & 2009

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NY MetsMathematically speaking, the NY Mets were eliminated around two weeks ago when even if they were to hypothetically win every game they had left in the year and the lead wild card team where to lose every game left there would still be no way the Mets would have more wins then that other team.

As a die hard Mets fan this did not persuade me to give up on watching my team. No, like the true fan I am I wore my orange and blue ball cap every day. Every day I tuned in for as long as possible to watch them play on TV. And every day I watched them at least try to win or even sometimes manage to win games. They lost no more than they did the rest of the year, but this week that all came to a grinding halt. Over the past three games including today‘s 7-4 embarrassment, the Mets lost to the most losing team in baseball– the Washington DC Nationals. This meant the worst team in the Major League Baseball system had swept the Mets without a blink or whimper. In all, this basically summed up the entire year in a nutshell.

Let’s put this in perspective for those of you who are not baseball fans or those of you who may not understand just how bad this is in terms of losses. The Nationals have lost 103 games this year. They have only won 55. There are only four games left in this season. That means the Nationals have a .348 win percentage. For those of you out there who are not statistics majors, that means that just below 35% of the time the Nationals will win a game. A decent team will post a win percentage of around .500 (50% chance of win) and a great team will be around .600 (60% chance of winning– the NY Yankees right now are at .646 and the winningest team in the MLB). The Mets pulled in at a mediocre .421. This is way below average and just above really bad. Any bad team’s main goal is not to get 100 losses and with 92 in the books the Mets are nearly there though they will not reach that horrible 100 loss plateau even if they lose the last four games (which they just might– they’re playing slightly better Houston Astros who are at .465).

Like I said in the beginning of this blog entry though, mathematically speaking the season ended some two weeks ago; but with some 20 games left I wanted to watch my team finish with honor, with dignity, and to see this season out. Today the season did end though not officially, but in my heart as a fan. I watched the bats come as alive as they ever have this year mustering a 4-2 lead. I then watched my team’s multi-million dollar closer (the finishing pitcher whose supposed to shut down the game) Francisco Rodriguez blow the game. He loaded the bases, proceeded to walk in a run, and then gave up a grand slam home run to a batter who was rated lackluster at best. Last year Francisco Rodriguez earned the nickname “K-rod” on the LA Angels where he had the most saves ever in a year. Rodriguez holds the MLB record for saves in a single season with 62; which he set in 2008. This year he mustered some 50% of that effort at 34 for the year. Before we get too down on Rodriguez I must point out he has six blown saves and five relief losses. Those numbers are no worse than 2008 when he saw seven blown saves and three loses. He simply had more opportunities to win with the Angels.

It seems though even he has gotten caught up in the injuries, management problems, and general malaise that has taken over the Mets this year. And with that the season ends for me– what happens in the next four games will not make these past three games any better; nor the 92 other losses disappear. With still many starting players on the injured list and Jose Reyes (the staring short stop) looking like his injury may last until Spring Training next year this one is done. And with it– goes the hopes and dreams of another year.

I think SNY‘s Bob Ojeda (himself a former Mets all star pitcher) said it best during the post game wrap up, “You can blame the coaches and the players somewhat. The real person you have to hold responsible is the team’s manager. You can think about firing the whole team, but realistically the manager is who needs to be held accountable.” I could not have echoed any better sentiments. How much longer can Jerry Manuel stay? I’m not sure, but I do sure as Hell miss Willy Randolph. The Mets may have swooned in the post-season with him; but at least they made it past October 4th and worse yet– I didn’t stop watching before October 1st.

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Celebrating 2009 With A Bang

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It’s that time of the year– well actually two months ago it was that time of the year, but we’re late. Either way, here is the “2008 Beat Feast” mix filled with all sorts of surprises and new DJ tricks bound to make you wonder how much free time I have (ironically not that much). Hop on over to the Pirate Radio section to download it now. Also, check out this week’s value special in the Merch Shop. This week we have the N parody DF logo tee on sale for $9.99. Grab it while you can. Happy New Year!

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