The Daily Procrastinator

The grass has turned from brown to green, there’s baseball on TV, and high school seniors really don’t care any more. It’s spring! We here at The Daily Procrastinator have been reveling in the joy of the season, and we celebrated by posting another crop of interesting, amusing, and/or distracting articles this week. Read on to make sure you didn’t miss a thing.

The week began with some meditations on working. First, TallGirl confessed that she’s a workaholic. How does one get to that terrifying state, you may ask. According to our Procrastinator, it’s a slippery slope. Beware! In another work-related incident, TallGirl discovered that she had more old tax forms than she felt like shredding, so she set them on fire. The resulting photograph is fantastic.

In keeping with our recently established tradition of posting an amusing animal picture with each Weekly Wrap-Up, here's a frog who's plotting world domination.

The arrival of baseball season tugged at both BigRedPoet’s and FlashCap’s heartstrings this week. First, BRP posted a reminiscence of his history with America’s pastime, ranging from his childhood fascination with the game to opening day of the 2009 campaign. Later, FlashCap paid homage to both baseball and T.S. Eliot with his tribute The Base(ball) Land.

In the world of entertainment, The Daily Procrastinator cast its net pretty wide this week. For starters, BigRedPoet posted his review of a board game called Last Night On Earth: The Zombie Game. After trying the game just a few times, he’s hooked! TallGirl threw her hat into the entertainment ring with a pop-quiz (or is it snarky social commentary?) about reality television.

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The Daily Procrastinator: Contributing to the Dramatic Reduction of Your Personal Productivity

Just fooling around here a bit: I’m neither ambitious enough nor knowledgeable enough about the game itself to parody the entirety of Eliot’s poem.

For John Updike, a baseball poet.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Snowdrop out in Arizona, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Pennant thoughts with spring training.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with free agency rumors.
Percival surprised us, shunning Steinbrenner
For a fever of Rays; we stopped at the stadium,
And went on to Friday’s, into the Biergarten,
And drank our brews, and talked for an hour:
“How can you be a Yankees fan? You’re from Boston!”
And when we were children, watching our heroes,
My brothers, we went out to the park,
With our father. He said, Michael,
Michael, hold the ball light. Like an egg.
In the ballpark, there you feel free.
I read SI, much of the night, and watch ESPN in the winter.

What are these fans who whistle, what people show

Support for this ‘roidy rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken idols. Steroid-fueled feats,

Bonds deserves no pinch runner, Clemens no relief,

And the spot light glares on all. Only

There is shadow within this diamond

(Come in under the shadow of this diamond),

And I will show you something different from either

Your chemical fed athlete hiding behind the MLBPA,

Or your money-led mercenary driven by dollars, not team;

I will show you joy in a child’s game.

Frisch weht der Wind

Der aubenfeld

Mein fanger,

Was hast zeichen?

“Ripken gave us hyacinths first ten years ago;”

“We called him the Iron Man.”

–Yet when he retired, late in ’01, from the O’s,

His arms weary, though his soul not spent, we could not

Speak, and our eyes wept. He was neither

Mercenary nor cheat, and we knew something,

Looking into that heart of might, the silence.

Oed’ und leer das Verband.

Where have you gone, Cal Ripken, Jr.? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Baseball needs its heroes. America needs baseball.