Twins Podcast Now Available

-The Twins podcast is up, Seth Stohs, Dan Wade, Josh Taylor and Jeff Straub joined me for a very long discussion on the Twins and at the end we discussed the Olympics as well. The best part of the podcast was my attempt to give the “Baseball is the sport of the proletariat” speech. Otherwise, I would really like to up my performances in the podcasts but luckily all the other guys are pretty good. My goal for the podcast this year was simply to have fun and provide good content and I think this has been accomplished. Skill and production value will have to wait.

Since the goal is to have fun, anyone interested in getting on the podcast email list can just drop a comment or email me at marty dot andrade at gmail dotcom. Otherwise, just call in. The show is spread by word of mouth so anything anyone wants to do to spread the show, I’ll support, short of spamming.

From the Notebook

-The Twins podcast is up, Seth Stohs, Dan Wade, Josh Taylor and Jeff Straub joined me for a very long discussion on the Twins and at the end we discussed the Olympics as well. The best part of the podcast was my attempt to give the “Baseball is the sport of the proletariat” speech. Otherwise, I would really like to up my performances in the podcasts but luckily all the other guys are pretty good. My goal for the podcast this year was simply to have fun and provide good content and I think this has been accomplished. Skill and production value will have to wait.

-Tony Garcia has listed some of the reasons he thinks he lost his show in St. Cloud. No surprises, personality conflicts and the scourge of all budding talk show hosts: syndicated programming. Might I suggest podcasting?

-Finished Shakespeare’s Hamlet as part of the Great Books of the Western World Ten Year Reading Plan. Hamlet is called the greatest drama ever written and for good reason. However, I got a little annoyed at how flaky Hamlet got. I also watched a couple of versions of Hamlet online, including the MST3K version. Fun stuff.

-One of the funnier quirks arising from my GBWW reading program is the fact my own English is becoming archaic (check to see how often I use amongst rather than among) and reading old books is getting a lot easier. Hamlet might as well have been a contemporary novel to me (a huge shift over previous times I read Shakespeare). “thus”es and “thou”s and British grammar come quite naturally to me now.

-Instead of actually prepping for the Twins Podcast, I spent the few hours between when I got off work Sunday and when the Podcast started reading George Orwell’s Animal Farm. I prefer 1984 over Animal Farm, as I think most contemporary readers will not understand the allegory in Animal Farm. Yet, I couldn’t put it down. Conservative Canon worthy.

-Last week I read Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe. Behe is an Intelligent Design proponent and a biochemist. In the book he presents the idea of “irreducible complexity” as proof for design in certain molecular structures found in living cells. I found his descriptions of these molecular structures (including the existence of cellular rotary engines) to be fascinating but I can’t adopt wholesale his argument. I don’t feel it’s theologically necessary.

-The Right Wing Wacko gave me “Cheat to Win” written by former LifeUSA CEO Bob MacDonald and I read it last week during my involuntary vacation (note: “involuntary vacation” is not code for “fired” as I am back at work this week). Considering this book was written by an insurance salesman who became CEO of an insurance company, it was very entertaining. And funny. And irreverent. This book is great. Anyone who has found themselves amidst the corporate culture will want to read this book. Thanks to the Wacko for the book.