Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Former Sox Pitcher Ugueth Urbina Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison

Thanks, Bloomberg News Service.

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Ugueth Urbina was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the attempted murder of five workers on his family's ranch in Venezuela.

Urbina, who last pitched in the majors for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2005, also was convicted of illegal deprivation of liberty during the dispute over a gun he owned, a spokesman for the Caracas-based Attorney General's office said.

Urbina, 32, has denied being part of a group of men that attacked workers with machetes at his family's ranch on Oct. 16, 2005.

His agent, Peter Greenberg, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment. Efforts to reach his lawyer were unsuccessful.

The two-time All-Star compiled 44 wins, 49 losses and 237 saves in 11 seasons with the Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, Florida Marlins, Detroit Tigers and Philadelphia during his career.


Urbina played with the Red Sox in 2002.

TomC

A Random Poem Written By Jack Kerouac




A woman is beautiful
but
you have to swing
and swing and swing
and swing like
a handkerchief in the
wind.

And a poem I enjoy quite a bit. For those of you who do not know:

Jack Kerouac (Jean Louis Lebris de Kerouac) (pronounced [dʒæk ˈkɛɹəwæk]) (March 12, 1922October 21, 1969) was an American novelist, writer, poet, and artist. He was part of the Beat Generation.

While enjoying popularity but little critical success during his own lifetime, Kerouac is now considered one of America's most important and influential authors. The spontaneous, confessional prose style inspired other writers and musicians, including Tom Robbins, Lester Bangs, Richard Brautigan, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Kerouac's best known works are On the Road, The Dharma Bums, Big Sur and Visions of Cody.

He divided most of his adult life between roaming the vast American landscape and living with his mother. Faced with a changing country, Kerouac sought to find his place, eventually rejecting the values of the Fifties. His writing often reflects a desire to break free from society's structures and to find meaning in life.

This search led him to experiment with drugs and to embark on trips around the world. His books are often credited as the catalyst for the 1960s counterculture. Kerouac died in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the age of forty-seven from an internal hemorrhage caused by his chronic alcoholism. He is buried in his hometown of Lowell, MA.


That last fact is quite important to me on a personal level, because like Jack, I grew up as a French Canadian Catholic in Lowell. The fact that someone from my town was so successful and culturally significant in the field of literature sparked in me a love of reading and writing that continues to this day. Though not my FAVORITE author per se, at one point I owned just about every piece of minutiae he published, as a badge of honor for being from the same town. Alas most of this is lost, though my appreciation of his work will never be.

TomC

Cusano 18 Maduro Robusto

I just though I would write a few quick things, to share with you the weird little cigar I sampled recently, the Cusano 18 Maduro. This was one rustic looking stogie, let me tell you, It looked like something directly out of a Clint Eastwood movie. It lit and burned adequately though, so overall it kind of enhanced the experience I had. This cigar was about as dry tasting as any cigar I have ever tried. Not even the tiniest hint of sweetness was present. Notes of french roasted coffee, oak and cedar, and peppery spice were the most evident. It was wild, I have never tasted anything quite like it, as almost every cigar I have tasted in the 5 year I have enjoyed this hobby has had at least some tiny level of sweetness to it. Not this case. I have a hard time recommending it to someone because even though I liked it, it is impossible for me to adequately convey what to expect. If you want to try a medium bodied cigar unlike anything else you have had, give this one a shot.

TomC

Charmed

Charmed is an American television series that ran for eight seasons on The WB. It was produced by Aaron Spelling and is about three sisters who are the world's most powerful good witches, known throughout the supernatural community as "The Charmed Ones" but known to everyone else as the Halliwells. Each sister possesses unique magical powers that grow and evolve over the course of their lives. The Charmed Ones live together in a manor and use their supernatural abilities to battle the warlocks, demons and other evil forces that populate San Francisco, California.

The show was the last in its generation of supernatural-themed shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Roswell, and has many times been noted for its mixing of multiple genres (from horror and fantasy to comedy and even soap), as well as continuing after a number of archetypal jump the shark moments, most famously the departure of one of the leading actresses at the end of season three.

But blah de blah. Most male fans watched the show because of the female dominated cast, whic included Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano, Shannen Doherty (for a time), Rose McGowan (after Doherty), and towards the end of the show, Kaley Cuoco as main characters. The show seemed to get them in all kinds of silly frivolous situations, and generally showed little concern for realism or legitimacy. If you can catch it on syndication, its a decent way to pass the time.

TomC