The response to last Friday’s article about the godless Detroit Tigers and their decision to hold their 2009 home opener on Good Friday has been nothing short of excellent, with the following comments well-deserving of a posting of their own. Between this site and Bleacher Report, a sports website that cross-posts Rake Blog’s sports articles:
Tired of the dearth of information about the vast array of products and cultural contributions of Taco Bell, Ted Berg and I are proud to introduce to the world, Taco Bell Wiki: The Comprehensive Source For Taco Bell Information That Anyone Can Edit.
Articles’ topics span the gamut from Taco Bell minutiae such as sauces and slight variations between products to broad concepts such as “Burritos” or “Lettuce.” However, the material as presented by Mr. Berg and myself is nothing like comprehensive, as active participation from the general public is required to help elevate Taco Bell Wiki to becoming the ultimate authority on the ultimate faux-Mexican fast food.
Go ahead and take a tour of Taco Bell Wiki’s offerings. If you see a fact or article that you feel is inaccurate or missing, please feel free to edit and create articles at will. I’ve put the wheels in motion for you, Taco Bell enthusiasts, the ball is in your court now. God speed.
Original Graphic by Eban Singer, copyright Taco Bell Wiki
Heebs Scott Rogowsky and Neil Janowitz host the monthly sports-themed live sketch comedy show, 12 Angry Mascots, at clubs around New York City. March’s installment featured a video parody of the bizarrely somber Gatorade “G” commercials, in which famous athletes equate drinking the sports beverage to performance-enhancing metaphysical and spiritual awakenings. Along with a ragtag collective of New York comedians, I made an appearance in the 12 Angry Mascots video, bringing some distinct Jake Rake flavor in my first-ever formal improv performance. Enjoy!
The Detroit Tigers baseball franchise should be ashamed of itself. By scheduling the team’s home 2009 home opener on Good Friday, the organization is sending a clear message to the greater Detroit area and the entire civilized world: “The Detroit Tigers hate Jesus Christ and all of his followers.”
The last thing the Catholic Church needs is more distractions for its parishioners. It’s bad enough that banks,
restaurants and movie theatres remain open on this, one of the three or four holiest days of the Christian calendar, but hey, what can you do about the Jews and their businesses? Of course, they shit a brick if you suggest going out for dinner or a drink on “Yom Kippur” or any of their holy days. But this isn’t about the Jews (at least I don’t think it is, but would anyone really be surprised to find out that they are behind this?), this is about baseball, and its utter disregard for all that is sacred.
If there are baseball games to go to on a beautiful spring afternoon, who is going to attend church? The archaic practices of a 2000-year-old religious institution based around repression and personal sacrifice can’t compete with watching Curtis Granderson smack triples into the cavernous Comerica Park outfield. Magglio Ordonez’s long, flowing locks billowing out from beneath his navy blue Tigers batting helmet is far more transfixing than any stained glass depiction of the emaciated corpse of our savior hanging from the cross. For crying out loud, even I’d prefer going to a ball game over spending the day at a musky old church. And it is for these reasons that the Tigers and everyone else should bend to the church’s whim.
I’m not asking for much here. All I’m saying is that the world is simply not large enough for both the church and all of the fun things that people like to do to make their lives more interesting and fun. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it is the sad truth. An because it is so, we must not only refrain from doing said fun things, but we must stop everyone from enjoying them as well. Hopefully, if we can eliminate all of the activities that humans have developed that have diminished the need for focus on the afterlife, the miserable population will then return to the church.
Godliness is next to cleanliness, people, and I’ve already showered today. I have faith the Tigers will cancel their home opener and make this the Best Friday ever!
==Bonus Content==
Click here for comments on this article from various creatures that inhabit the Internet.
Well, we’ve got our first major league baseball kidnapping story of the spring, as former Yankee and current Pirates prospect Jose Tabata’s wife has been accused of stealing a baby from a Plant City, Fla., hospital. 
Amalia Tabata Pereira allegedly showed up at the Plant City Health Department in the guise of an immigration official, but no one is quite sure of what happened thereafter which resulted in Pereira obsconding with a baby.
Women, right? Their hormones take control and they just get so baby crazy they just cannot wait to smother something that genetic maternal instinct.
Matron issues are abound for Pereira, 43, who is old enough to be her 20-year-old husband’s mother, and if we want to get kinky about it and use our imaginations, she could potentially be his sister as well.* ESPN reports that Pereira has a criminal record, including theft and fraud convictions. Let’s hope that the baby’s mother doesn’t light Pereira and Tabata on fire in retaliation.
*There is no evidence to support this claim.
In an editorial in The New York Times on Tuesday, William C. Rhoden explores the reasons why the United States’ contingency lost to that of Japan in Sunday night’s semifinal game of the World Baseball Classic, 
pondering:
“Did the United States lose a semifinal game on Sunday? Or have we lost the game itself?”
William C. Rhoden should probably not be allowed to write about baseball in The New York Times. In addition to violating my biggest journalistic pet peeve by referring to the United States as “we,” Rhoden’s column presents no empirical evidence to support the writer’s point of view, instead relying on folksiness and boring clichés. Worse, by placing emphasis on a single game, Rhoden shows a complete misunderstanding of the game of baseball.
Let’s throw this out there right there: Team USA lost Sunday night’s game because they scored less runs than they allowed to Team Japan, who proved to be a formidable opponent. That’s all. One game, or even a series of games such as the World Baseball Classic or the Major League playoffs is nothing like an indicator of one team’s superiority or inferiority over another. The Yankees won 95 games in 2005, but were somehow swept in a three-game series by the lowly Kansas City Royals, who won 56. Were the Royals better than the Yankees in 2005? No, they just played at a comparable level over the course of enough games to have allowed the Yankees to establish themselves as the better team. Anything can happen in a reasonably evenly matched baseball game; on any given day Albert Pujols can go 0-for-4 or Mark Whiten could hit four home runs.
I was rooting around in a Facebook friend of a Facebook friend’s posted photos, as those of us with large swaths of time on our hands are wont to do, and I came across this gem that needeth be shared with the world. I can’t tell whether the obvious Photoshop modification would enhance this or if in this case the mime is the better actor?
“I bowled a 129 — it was like the Special Olympics or something.”
-Barack Obama
“This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world.”
-Sarah Palin
“Hi. This is Wilford Brimley. Welcome to Retardation: A Celebration. Now, hopefully with this book, I’m gonna dispel a few myths, a few rumors. First off, the retarded don’t rule the night. They don’t rule it. Nobody does. And they don’t run in packs. And while they may not be as strong as apes, don’t lock eyes with ‘em, don’t do it. Puts ‘em on edge. They might go into berzerker mode; come at you like a whirling dervish, all fists and elbows. You might be screaming “No, no, no” and all they hear is “Who wants cake?” Let me tell you something: They all do. They all want cake.”
-Wilford Brimley,
Strangers With Candy: Retardation, a Celebration
“While back, I took a stroll through the pit, I saw that kid we got running things down there, uh, Poot. Now, he got the cell phone I gave him for the business, right there on his hip. But, the nigga got another cell phone that only rang when the pussy called. Now, if this no-count nigga got two cell phones, how the fuck you gonna sell any more of them motherfuckers? That’s market saturation.”
-Stringer Bell
It has long been established how we here at Rake Blog feel about NBC’s The Office, but today we sing praises in its name after last night’s episode, “New Boss.” The titular boss that catapults the episode from typical to noteworthy is a new character named Charles Minor, portrayed by none other than Idris Elba, a.k.a. Stringer Bell.
Elba more or less reprises the Stringer Bell character in The Office, playing a no-nonsense businessman interested in little but product and profit, and in the process furthering The Wire’s credo that business is business, whether you’re selling red caps or paper supplies. Minor puts BMOC’s Michael Scott and Jim Halpert in their places, proving immune to the charms of the former 40-year-old virgin and current Blackberry spokesman, respectively, at one point coldly instructing Halpert to shut the door behind him as if he were Boadie Brodus messing up a count.
And when all is said and done, maybe that’s exactly the case: Jim and Boadie are one in the same; Middle managers whose ability to stay cool under the pressures of a demanding marketplace and ease in dealing with customers has granted them upward mobility in their industries of choice. Likewise, Minor makes it known to that office workers of Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch that he rules with an iron fist, showing little patience for the shenanigans typical of Michael Scott’s regime. While Michael embodies the Peter Principal with his incompetent, emotion-driven managing style, Minor mirrors Bell’s ruthless business savvy, letting Michael throw a tantrum and scurry out of the office in tears in a parallel to Bell’s orders that Poot and Boadie are to kill their lifelong friend, the emotionally unstable Wallace. When Minor dissolves Scranton’s time-honored Party Planning Committee, he cuts Michael every bit as deep as Bell did when he informs Avon Barksdale that it was he who ordered the hit on Avon’s nephew, D’angelo.
The goal of both The Office and The Wire is to paint a picture of reality. Both series emphasize the mundaneness of working within a system, the repercussions of inept leadership and the motivation for why human beings bother getting up and going to work in the morning. The Office’s staff and the street crews, schoolteachers, police officers, politicians, children, civil servants, newspaper reporters and the other denizens of the Wire’s universe interact within their own micro-environments (The Dunder-Mifflin office and the city of Baltimore, respectively), as well as greater American society. The Scranton office is faced with the prospects of branch mergers, transfers and corporate meddling, while The Wire’s Baltimore deals with everything from diverted port traffic to invading drug dealers from New York to intrusions from the Federal Government.
In conclusion, watching Stinger Bell punk Jim Halpert was extremely satisfying. There’s nothing like some over-the-top pop culture analysis to kick off the weekend.
A man in Finland has initiated the next stage in humankind’s ongoing quest to become machine,* installing a 2 GB hard drive with USB connectivity in his prosthetic finger. The man, who lost his finger in a motorcycle,
told the BBC that he plans on using the drive to store music, movies and programs, like an iPhone. The USB port can be accessed by peeling back the nominal “finger nail” of the “finger.”
This is obviously awesome, as a digital finger with the kind of universal compatibility a USB port allows is way cooler (not to mention more useful) than a hook (which is also obviously awesome, but not as useful), a normal prothetic (a la Buster Bluth) or a stump (which is not at all convenient and is totally gross).
An so goes this year’s interesting story from Finland.
*”Humankind” in this case referring to myself, Alex Murphy and J.P. from Grandma’s Boy.
Not to be a downer or anything, but with today’s announcement that none other than John Lannan will start the Washington Nationals’ 2009 season opener on April 6th in Miami, let’s take a look at the Nats’ opening day starters past and where they are today:
In conclusion, none of the four pitchers who have made opening day starts for the Nationals since 2003 currently possess jobs with major league teams. Go Nats.
PS: As of this writing Odalis Perez’s Wikipedia entry contains one of those awesome likely falsehoods that I appreciate enough not to correct:
The cover of a free newspaper distributed on street corners throughout New York City:
On a similar note, this story has shockingly been “racking” up Diggs like nobody’s business. Well done, Yahoo:
13.73 Billion YBP (Years Before Present): Universe Formed; no one is around to know about it, but time begins.
4.5 Billion YBP: Earth Formed; still no one around to waste or keep track of it, but time still happening.
1923: Time Magazine begins publication, with Rep. Joseph Gurney Cannon (R-Ill.) on the cover of the first issue. Cannon, who rocked the “beard-and-sideburns-but-no-mustache look in the cover photo, served in Congress for 48 years. He was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln, but often clashed with Teddy Roosevelt a half-century or so later.
1973: Pink Floyd releases the single “Time,” featuring seminal quadraphonic clock recording by engineer Alan Parsons, later of his eponymous Project.
1992: A 7-year-old Jake Rake receives as a Hanukkah gift the Sony Dream Machine radio alarm clock that he still uses to this day.
2000: The 2000 U.S. Census reports the following statistics for the village of Time, Illinois: Population: 29; Racial Makeup: 100% White; Percentage of Pop. Under 18: 0%; Percentage of Pop. Over 64: 0%
2156: Time Ends; Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Baseball writer and former ludicrously fat dude Peter Schmuck wrote a column in the Baltimore Sun yesterday discussing the possibility of the Orioles making an offer to Pedro Martinez, who as of this writing 
has yet to find a major league job in 2009. Orioles general manger Andy MacPhail, who we love here at Rake Blog, has dismissed the rumors, responding to Schmuck’s questions about Pedro by saying: “Obviously, our pro scouts are out in other camps, looking at other pitchers, but we would have to think it is a meaningful upgrade.”
I rarely lend credence to what sports executive have to say about trade rumors, because if they are smart they don’t discuss the team’s internal dealings with the public, but let’s pretend for a minute that MacPhail is being 100% straight with a guy named Peter Schmuck. Why would the Orioles not even consider signing Pedro for his apparent asking price of around $5 million? Because their 2009 starting rotation is too jam-packed with Mark Hendrickson to waste any starts finding out if a guy who is on the short list of pitchers who could be considered the best of all time still has anything left in the tank? Because Rick Dempsey is jealous of Pedro’s awesome, Eazy-E-style jeri-curl?
The Orioles have nothing to lose in 2009. Their crop of young pitchers have not quite arrived yet, and their current patchwork rotation is the perfect place to plug in a not-doubt Hall-of-Famer to eat up starts while the team works Chris Tillman, Jake Arrieta, David Hernandez and Brandon Erbe onto the big league roster. Plus, it would be awesome, even though his pet human is no mas. Pedro rules.
Enjoy these original photographs of Matt Wieters in the Orioles’ spring training camp, courtesy of esteemed amateur photographer, Barry Trebach.
