Beast Wars

Back in the late 1990's, when i was just getting through middle school, there was a nice little animated TV series on UPN that aired for three seasons in the morning during school time, and I loved it. It was called Beast Wars, a spin-off of the popular transformers series.

I still love it. The entire series is posted on YouTube by some magnanimous soul, and I applaude him/her. Anyway, it's a great watch even for a cartoon, as there's great battling, good story lines, funny voices, CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT, even a love story ( better than the soaps, eh?), and popular media references. In 3 different scenes, Dinobot quotes Hamlet. Ex: when dying, Dinobot quotes, " The rest is silence." Found courtesy of Ali Godil. Check it out if you're like me and have a bit of free time in the summer.

Chien- Ming Wang is like the spark of the Yankees rotation: Can't live without him ( The Beast wars bots had sparks as hearts). Anyway, the guy is just so steady especially for a team that always has problems with pitching, injuries, and so forth. 19 wins the last 2 seasons, ERA under 4, pitches in one of the most stressful sports markets in America, gotta love'em. Again, i think i mentioned it before, he was 2nd in voting for AL Cy Young a couple years ago. And he's only 28. He's got a bright future. He's Taiwanese, btw, not Chinese, altho some would argue that those are the same nationality.

Mike Mussina and Greg Maddux might be on the verge of bounceback years, while John Smoltz on the verge of retiring. Sad about Smoltz, as he's had an illustrious career but might end it on a BS, blown save. Maddux's peripherals are so far really awesome, while Mussina's 8 wins lead the AL, i think.

Whatever happened to Alex Rios? I just looked at his stats and he'd be like a 4th outfielder in fantasy leagues. 3 hr's? .266? Not gonna get the job done, man.

Jorge Posada back in the Yankees lineup today, or as my friend Justin calls him, George Posada. He woulda had 20 Hr's in a full season, I'll say 15 as a rough estimate for this year. Still real good for a catcher.

Ryan Howard 2006 NL MVP, Jimmy Rollins 2007 NL MVP, Chase Utley 2008 NL MVP?? Sure looks like it. After his big tear in april, thought he'd regress a little bit, but he's still hammering homers all over the ballpark, to the tune of a major-league leading 21. We're in early June.

May be the last time i ever talk about a washington national: I think Lastings Milleage is in the right place. Go out to a low-market team, no pressure to succeed, get your game developed, bat in the prime hitting spots in the lineup, live up to 1st round draft pick hype, become future star. Or be a bust. Either way.

Milleage could follow in the prototype of Adrian Gonzalez, former overall #1 pick: Sweet swing, man.

As I write this Milleage gets picked off of first. Great!

My friend Arsalaan and I applied for the Amazing Race 14, long shot if any but the only sure thing is if you DON't apply you have ZERO shot of making it, so we did under a "Harold and Kumar" theme. Btw, if you haven't seen H+K 2, i'd still recommend it although people didn't think it was as good as the first one? Where'd they get that idea?

Fantasize on,
Robert Yan