Obstruction

That Mets person is a coach, not a player, and that is obstruction. Wilson should be called out.

World Series has arrived and if MLB promotion ads want to repeatedly equate the '86 Buckner error with the Mets winning the world series then I want to point something out:

Rule: 7.09 "It is interference by a batter or a runner when --(h) With a runner on third base, the base coach leaves his box and acts in any manner to draw a throw by a fielder; "


4.05
(a) The offensive team shall station two base coaches on the field during its term at bat, one near first base and one near third base.
(b) Base coaches shall be limited to two in number and shall (1) be in team uniform, and (2) remain within the coach’s box at all times.
PENALTY: The offending base coach shall be removed from the game, and shall leave the playing field.
Rule 4.05 Comment: It has been common practice for many years for some coaches to put one foot outside the coach’s box or stand astride or otherwise be slightly outside the coaching box lines. The coach shall not be considered out of the box unless the opposing manager complains, and then, the umpire shall strictly enforce the rule and require all coaches (on both teams) to remain in the coach’s box at all times.
It is also common practice for a coach who has a play at his base to leave the coach’s box to signal the player to slide, advance or return to a base. This may be allowed if the coach does not interfere with the play in any manner.

In the Game 6 incident, the Mets First base coach, is Bill Robinson, is approximately 10 feet beyond the limit of where a coach can go, he has intentionally moved to distract Buckner, who is a mere 6 feet from him, instead of the 15 feet the field coach is supposed to be. It's inexcusable considering the situation for a coach to interfere with the players. That coach can do nothing but interfere with the play standing where he is. When Buckner overran the ball he almost collided with the Mets coach who had to bounce back out of the way and scurried like a cockroach to join the celebration at home. I've seen first base coaches move up and down the line but rarely will you ever see a first base coach actually in the same location as a defensive player with the ball in play. Usually they run away from the ball but in the case of Wilson's groundball, the first base coach ran toward Buckner intentionally trying to distract him. This was not caught by the home field umps. the Sox didn't protest, but it's clearly obstruction by the first base coach, who would've collided with Stanley and Wilson had the ball been fielded by Buckner. Since all the Mets were coke and crack fiends I'm sure this can be blamed on mid-eighties drug addiction.

I would not bring this up but MLB wants to shove that play in my face repeatedly during the World Series so I have to say something. This gets into the realm of the pine tar incident, except for the fact the field coach is truly trying to distract Buckner's peripheral vision because he has the same uniform as Wilson, who is running, so Buckner might think there is a player 6 feet away from him and has already reached first base, but it's not. Wilson is way down the line. Simply a dirty move by the dirty Mets coach. I can say definitively that Mets manager Davey Johnson did not influence that play and I can say the home plate ump didn't influence that play, but I can not say definitively that Bill Robinson did not influence that play, and since he is a coach and had no business on that side of the coach's box, he is guilty of obstruction and the Mets are cheats with a giant * next to that '86 win.

P.S. I was real pleased that the Mets were 2 outs from winning Game 1 tonight and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Bravo Royals! It's weird, but Game 6 in 1986 was played on October 25, and because of the ALDS and Wildcard the 2015 World Series didn't even start until October 28th.

Leather Hat Bands

I'm a small step closer to opening a Custom tooled leather hat band store. You might think the rivets connecting the straps are intentional but that is what happens when I cut the leather flat and the whole thing doesn't fit right because the crown of the hat leans back. It would take some engineering to cut a one piece leather band. But I like the rivets because they can be adjusted.

Oggy's Spirit Symbol

The straw sombrero is from El Paso

I guess the idea is to practice cutting and tooling leather for my dashboard, which is a daunting project. I managed to find a leather gouge tool but I was too impatient to practice with it for any length of time. I dove into the project without any tracing or idea of what I was going to carve, inadequate lighting, no hard surface to work on. I'm not a big fan of the flowers that are typical leather tool designs. I considered burning it with my solder iron but I think chemicals were used to tan this big shoulder of leather, Guatemalan chemicals, so they are double bad and burning Guatemalan chemicals near your face is no bueno.

 I heard a sad story while in Guatemala that the humane society was dumping 60 dog corpses a week into a nearby river along side a pile of car batteries and used motor oil. Actually, another story was the terrible algae blooms in Lago Atitlan, because there is no sewage treatment and all sewage runs into the lake. So, some scam company says they have a chemical that can treat the algae. First off, there is no way in the world a Guatemalan chemical company is going to be based off of tested science, so that's the first red flag. The second red flag was some family relation between the company and the official who decides it is time to clean up the lake. The final red flag was the chemical was some god-awful untested cocktail of death. Did they test it on another lake, or even in a bathtub? Oh, no. Nothing. Did they even test a small amount on the lake first? Oh, no. The Guatemalan way is to dump the entire inventory into the lake, untested, without warning, take the money from the scam official and buy a Land Rover...wait until all the fish die and unexplained rashes appear on locals...and then a real biological chemist determines the "cleaning chemical" is ten times worse than any bacteria or algae or human shit that was in the lake to begin with and this was the worst thing they could pour into the lake. Lago Atitlan is one of the highest volcanic lakes in the world and god help you if you drive there.
The chemical company mysteriously disappears, the official vanishes, maybe beheaded, the lake water deteriorates further and that is the cycle of insanity in Guatemala. That's not related at all to leather hat bands but I thought I would share it anyway.

They have fancy leather stain, but I use $1 Guatemalan boot shine

Up close at Oggy's leather craft skills. Symmetry is not a strong point. Note the Eyelet.

Oggy is on a leather craft spree. Plusera and another pick holder

Daily Pulse Check

If you listen to this song and snap your fingers or tap your toes then you are ok. If you don't move at all then you are in trouble.

Too True

This random phrase generator is pretty funny. It creased the corners of my lips for the first time in a dog's age. Reading about police killings reminds me of the countless cases of the police trying to antagonize me into self-defense, brandishing their guns, tasers, shouting, one getting me in a Junk Yard Dog wrist lock and neck slam that he felt sure would get me to react in a way that would justify an extrajudicial execution. But no, my back and shoulder pain prevent me from making any actions that would be viewed as 'aggressive' so they always let me go after getting the dogs to search my dirty underwear. I live the life that puts me into contact with bully cops on a regular basis so I'm very concerned that I will be tased, jerk erratically, and the cop will determine that my muscle spasms are actually me reaching for a button that will detonate a bomb in my ass, and so he will execute me 'to save himself'. It happens every day and no charges are filed. Slowly, the dissidents are being executed by public servants. Not by accident; by design.

But the phrase generator gave me reason to laugh again.

Here's one from Corporate slogans:
We will help to enable indexed solutions for today's profit-driven dot-com virtual corporations.

We are continually evolving, helping to enable indexed eBusiness solutions for today's pyramid-based corporations. 

From Financial slogans:
In the Asian market, plan to prorate lump-sum long positions.

Deferred systemic risks: in insolvent market segments, always insulate them.

Political Slogans:
Unlike myself, my opponent wants an America where tribal warlords and 24-hour news networks can undermine our hard-working neighborhoods.

Know this: that I believe in our Bibles, our powerful SUVs and our right to use up the world's resources.

Know this: that I will protect our McMansions, our right to shoot brown people and our judicial system.

Random headlines:
 8 Fascinating Needlepoint Tips From William Shatner

 Wine reviews:
Champs de Kairet mixes absurd smack flavors and a sinful gingerbread finish in their 1992 Bordeaux.

 I laugh because a Nicaraguan dairy farmer was asking me about America because he had heard stories of men migrating there to wash cars, and sending money home to Nicaragua, and I was trying to explain the real economy and imagine the scene with us sitting in a mud hut with no electricity far away in the old Sandinista rebel wilderness, a fire burning in the corner, cows mooing in the late evening breeze, we are both shucking beans for tomorrow's breakfast. And I say, in tortured Spanish,

"Jobs in America are jobs making software, applicaciones, to put your cat's photo in different geological locations."

He's incredulous, "My cat? Gato?"

"Yes, a gato...but not a real cat, a photo of a cat. A digital photo, not even something you can touch."

"A photo? Americans photograph their cats?"

"Oh yes, photographs, and video, sometimes whole documentaries. The cat is real, but the photo is never developed or printed."

"Videos of cats?"

"Yes, you take a photo of your cat, and take the photo and upload it to the software, and the software can change the expression of the cat's face. This is a very profitable idea in America. Americans trust and admire this kind of software. That is how to make money in America. Someone who washes cars would be looked upon as dirt, totally worthless, a slave. But an application to edit cat photos or generate odd, useless slogans is very profitable."

He grabs another bean pod to shuck the 4 pinto beans into a bowl that is slowly filling. "I do not understand."

A lightning bug flies by in the breeze. "I don't either."

 And when I read one of these random phrase generations..."We will continue to resell web-enabled business metrics for today's leading virtual eMonopolies" I laugh because they are a parody of a parody, but also true.

Here's one I wrote:
"Commoditization of keystone resources for salient underwriters is our specialty."

Film Study

I was going to make this a screenshot trivia question but no one seemed to take any guesses so I will give you the answer.

Not a coincidence the sun is there.

In 1984, one year before he would direct Back to The Future, Robert Zemeckis directed Romancing the Stone, and in this shot from 2 minutes in we see his eye for detail. The opening vignette is actually a film adaptation of the end of a romance novel that character Joan Wilder is writing and narrating at that moment. It's like a dream sequence, but the audience doesn't know it yet. So, this is a movie, based on a fake book, being written by a character within the real movie, which was written by a totally different woman in real life, and directed by Zemeckis. If ever there was a chance to 'mail it in' this was it, because the romance novel is supposed to be cheesy, unbelievable, poly-Anna, harlequin. But Zemeckis can not help himself and set this less-than-1-second shot of the woman riding away on the horse in such a way that as soon as the horse's head pulls aside, the sun appears brilliantly because the camera places the horse head directly between it and the sun. Seconds later three armed men appear, intent on killing the woman. Her savior appears on a hill , completely disguised because the sun is actually setting behind him.

Intentionally cliche

Well, seconds earlier the woman has to shield her eyes to look at him...and now the sun is setting behind him and perfectly sets him in silhouette. This is because the hero is on a bluff (which looks like, and indeed is, in Utah) that ends in such a way that the sun shines on the woman but not the hero. I'm telling you, this 4 minute sequence probably took a week to film and I don't think this was an assistant director because the shots are too stylized. Most of it is shot outside, in a National Park or near Zion, and that demands major effort due to lighting. Check out this scene here, which also explains why the boat at the end of the movie is named "Angelina".

I point this out because the details Zemeckis applied to this fake movie within a movie based on a fake book within a screenplay are perfectly executed and actually show exactly why Back to The Future is so good. This is also the first legitimate feature film for composer Alan Silvestri, who would compose the great themes for Back to The Future and Forrest Gump too. I often like to point out that people who pine for the Eighties and moan that 'movies were so much better then" are cherry picking films like Romancing The Stone, which is basically a case of the stars aligning behind a totally unknown screenwriter to turn this into a very strong movie that stands the test of time. Quality and talent will always withstand the effects of time. Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, Zemeckis, DeVito, Silvestri. These figures were cornerstones of cinema for a decade and beyond. The Eighties had plenty of terrible duds but Romancing the Stone is not one of them. The cinematography and production design are trademark Zemeckis.