RSSKosmo’s Briefs
Feb 10
Assorted Baseball, Crime, Politics No Comments
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Oh, joy. Random odds and ends in today’s column 🙂
I’ve finished off a free freelance jobs in the past couple of weeks. I have a pretty decent backlog of articles and could keep pretty busy with the freelance work if my schedule allowed for it. While The Soap Boxers makes a negligible amount of money, it’s nice to have freelance gigs where I get paid. The cash is nice, but so is the underlying meaning – someone things my writing is good enough to pay me for it.
Johnny Goodman wrote an interesting article and submitted it to me. You won’t be seeing it on The Soap Boxers, though. I found a market for the article and brokered the sale for him. It’s Johnny’s first professional sale, and he’s nearly as happy about it as I am. I guess technically it makes me a literary agent.
The murder-suicide in Washington state saddened me greatly. Unfortunately, we’ve had a couple of case of parents killing kids in Iowa City in the last few years. As a parent, I find it extremely disturbing. Personally, one of the strangest details about the whole incident is that he emailed family and friends about where his money was and how to get utilities shut off (I’m guessing the gas company is going to shut off gas supply to the raging inferno without being explicitly asked). So he was able to think through all these insignificant details, but overlooked that whole “killing my kids is very bad” aspect?
Rick Santorum picked up wins in Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado. Mitt Romney finished second in Missouri and Colorado, but third in Minnesota (Ron Paul was second). Gingrich wasn’t on the ballot in Missouri and failed to hit 15% in the other states. At the moment, it looks like Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich will all stick around for a while. Santorum and Gingrich would be better off if one of them dropped out, and it would allow the “anyone but Romney” faction to consolidate behind one candidate instead of fracturing the vote. I suppose Ron Paul is also taking votes from someone.
Scouts from the Baltimore Orioles have been banned from attending games in South Korea after signing a 17 year old who hadn’t yet begun his senior year of high school. While Major League Baseball allows teams to sign foreign players (those not subject to the draft) at age 16. However, the governing body of Korean baseball does not allow players to interact with professional teams until their last year of school (applicable to both high school and college players).
The band Alabama is touring once again, sans longtime drummer Mark Herndon (there was a lawsuit over some royalties). I’m hoping to see some new music from the guys very soon, but will definitely miss Mark’s drumming. I’m a huge fan of the group, owning more than 30 of their albums (including some very hard to find stuff). I’ve been reacquainting myself with a lot of their work lately, and can’t help but enjoy some of the forgotten songs from their albums – such as Pete’s Music City, Pony Express, and Clear Across America Tonight. None are signature hits for the group, but these songs – and dozens of other – are very enjoyable to listen to. Hard to believe that some of these songs are 25-30 years old.
The Pony Express has a special place in the history of this country. Care to guess how long it was in operation? 10 years? 5 years? Nah – a mere 18 months.
