Good gigs this weekend. Even had people dancing to "Seven Nation Army" Saturday night, which was kinda weird but very cool. One thing I’m working on is stage presence. Being an idiot in my own home is easy, but doing it in front of a bunch of drunk people (while I’m sober) is another story.

It’s worth the effort though. There’s nothing worse than watching a band just stand around and play their music. Stare at their feet, or their hands. And it drives me nuts when there’s a lot of dead time between songs. If you’re working the crowd, that’s one thing. But it’s hard to get enthusiastic about guys trying to figure out which key they’re playing a song in or whether they’re in tune.

So on Saturday, while we were debating such matters, I decided to "entertain" the crowd with a stirring rendition of "I’m All Out of Love." I only played about 15 seconds worth, but that was more than enough time for me to receive a (much-deserved) chorus of boos (though mercifully, not booze). One woman even threatened to throw her shoe at me (that could really hurt; who throws a shoe?).

Anyway, I figure a few boos are better than a bunch of blank stares. Where’s the love for Air Supply though? I guess they’re all out of it.

Non-Baseball Places to Visit

In which I show that I sometimes think about other things. Often, it should be noted, as they relate to baseball.

• Languagehat — Language, philosophy, literature. If you have any interest in these, this site is worth a visit.
• Online Etymology Dictionary — The Baseball Reference of etymology. Need to know the origin of a word? Don’t have a copy of the OED handy? No problem.

Shut Up and Talk about Baseball Already

Okay, can do. The Pads took one of three in San Francisco this weekend. Doesn’t sound impressive, but they’ve got one more win against the Giants after the All-Star break than anyone else does.

Significantly, Phil Nevin has made an immediate impact, even launching his first homer of the season in Saturday night’s contest. His blast provided Kevin Jarvis all the support he needed in a 2-0 victory. Jarvis is enhancing his trade value with each start, and it’s now becoming conceivable that someone would be willing to take on his salary.

The rumors are flying all over the place right now, and it’s hard to separate fact from fiction, but names being mentioned as possibly coming to San Diego are Brian Giles and Jason Kendall, J.D. Drew, Milton Bradley, and Ramon Castro. Sure wouldn’t mind seeing Giles and Kendall in Padre unis. Right now the Rondell White to Florida for Castro and Blaine Neal rumors are pretty hot. Tomorrow the names may be different. Then again, nothing may come of any of this. We shall see.

And in other news, Julien Headley has a relatively new baseball blog going. Interesting stuff here. Probably the best place to start is by reading up on his discussion of various performance metrics that he uses in evaluating player production. Julien claims that they are both diagnotstic and predictive tools. Mainly for lack of time, I haven’t dug into these much, but stuff like this always gets my attention. Word of caution: If you’re surfing from work and your company has some kind of filtering software in place, you may not get through; Julien’s prose doesn’t always get a PG rating. But he’s got some intriguing ideas.