A Series of Digressions

I am always in favor of saving an animal's life, but the case of Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro bothers me to no end. In case you are even less of a horse racing fan than I am (I watch the actual Triple Crown races and that is it - no four-hour pre-show chock full o' frilly hats), Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby and then sadly shattered the bones in one of his hind legs. From reports I read, most veterinary experts opined that pretty much every horse they had ever seen suffer this injury was put down on the track because it is extremely difficult to recover from. Hours upon hours spent in multiple surgeries later, Barbaro now has titanium plates in his leg and has had to suffer through multiple complications, including pain from inflammation and potentially life-threatening infections. He's got a long recovery road ahead of him and his chances of survival are still not great.

I think it's great Barbaro is still alive, but if anyone thinks the owners are spending massive amounts of money on a very risky surgery just out of the goodness of their hearts, they're fooling themselves. I think this quote from owner Gretchen Jackson sums it up: "My hope for him is that he lives a painless life. And whether that means he'll be able to be a stallion and we're lucky enough to see little Barbaros, that would be a supreme hope for him, but it must be a pain-free life."

I don't doubt that Mrs. Jackson loves horses and she genuinely does not want Barbaro to suffer, but she and her husband are still putting him through a long and strenuous ordeal; there is no way he would have had to experience all this if he were a gelding. Given the circumstances of the injury, the statements I have read from veterinarians, and the above quote, it seems obvious to me that the primary reason Barbaro is still alive today is to maximize the Jackson's return on investment. As much as I love animals, if the most humane course of action was euthanasia, that's what should have happened.

Saw a link to an "AJ Pierzynski Motivational Poster" contest on McCovey Chronicles. Although "violence is never the answer, kids", Michael Barrett has suddenly become a hero to many. Pierzynski is almost universally regarded as a massive prick in baseball circles (see here), and most fans seem to be celebrating this particular fist to the face.
As far as the contest, this entry is my favorite...

As I mentioned in my first post, I've been thinking about creating a blog for some time now. Ridiculously enough, one of the things that held me up was trying to figure out a good URL to use with Blogger. It seemed everything I wanted was taken, and I was having a tough time coming up with anything easy to spell and to remember, so as not to confuse the legions of readers I'm sure to have. Plus, I'm often wishy-washy about things that feel permanent. Was "personalarea" a great result from all that angst? Probably not, but at least it's a goofy double entendre, which is generally all it takes to amuse me.

So here you have it. Another blog from some babbling dumbshit who took a few writing classes to kill time between binge drinking episodes in college and is now clutching at the one straw that will possibly fulfill his intrinsic need to have his voice heard. I won't deny most of that.

I've never been one to keep a journal (except while traveling), but I have always been a technophile, and the advent of blogs has slowly been drawing me in for some time now. I've considered creating one many times, only to think "no one will ever read it", but it's become obvious to me that it doesn't really matter if anyone else ever reads what I am typing right now. This is simply a place for me to record my thoughts on any matter I deem worthy of spending a few minutes of my time on. More than anything, I want to be able to look back and see just what the hell I was thinking at a given time in my life.

So what are my interests? They're pretty damn standard, really. I am a big sports fan, and a few years ago I was introduced to the wonderful world of fantasy sports. Being an extremely analytical person, I invest WAY too much time poring over stats and news on every baseball, football, and basketball player out there. I do, on occasion, play sports as well - specifically indoor soccer, which I am somewhat awful at. I also spend quite a bit of time watching TV (I'm not afraid to admit it), reality shows included. Fantasy sports and TV ramblings will probably make up a large number of posts on this blog. Since they're not related in any way, that will end up making this thing a bit disjointed. Oh well.

There you have it. I doubt anything I just said will make anyone want to read this blog regularly. However, I can promise you one thing: near-flawless spelling. Hell yeah.