Monday Fuming

Some people were a little miffed that I compared our twelve year old daughter to the North Korean dictator and party king, Kim Jong Il. I can understand your concerns, however, I will offer a comparison in my unprofessional opinion between the North Korean dancing missile loving ruler and a twelve year old girl:

(1) Both are ego driven and self-absorbed. 12 year old girls are focused primarily only on their wants and needs while excluding everyone else's. Kim Jong Il will allow his country to collectively starve to death as long as he gets his women, money, and internet porn.

(2) Both are irrational in their decision making. 12 year old girls underestimate the danger of decisions and overestimate their ability to manage whether the dangers are. Kim Jong Il will make every decision possible to alienate the international community and cause every other reasonable country to ostracize his country. Kim Jong Il launches "attacks" at anyone and everyone no matter consequences. Twelve year old girls? DefCon 1 when things are going their way.

(3) Both are moody. Kim Jong Il has crazy mood swings that would make Brit Spears blush. One day he will be a happy clown dancing to old ABBA tunes and watching re-runs of ChiPs. The next day he'll randomly execute dissidents in an erratic angry rant. 12 year old girls are hopelessly hormonal and switch emotional gears as drastically as Roger Clemens fall from grace.

(4) Both are dictators. Kim Jong Il dictates to everyone in his country and in the world what he thinks they should do and he thinks he is always right in his command decisions. Twelve year old girls dictate to everyone in their country what she thinks they should do and she thinks she is always right in her command decisions. No matter what happens both believe that you are wrong.

You may not like the comparison, but any parent who has ever had an adolescent daughter would tell you the same thing. If they didn't they would be lying. The good thing about this is that most of the time 12 year old girls grow out of this stage and become reasonable adults. Kim Jong Il? He'll grow up when he's dead.



Time for another relationship rule. Rule #6. Do not at all costs get married (if you even should) out of fear. Another one of my rules of life is to never negotiate out of fear and instead make deals from a point of strength. If you negotiate out of fear then you are signaling that you do not have enough chips available to play the next hand of poker. You have little to deal with and are at risk for losing more then you can gain. From a position of fear, you are likely to jump into a sucker deal just to get the deal done. Then you have remorse after the fact once all the dust settles. If you deal from a position of strength (even only in perception) then you don't need the deal at all to survive. You have more than enough to deal with. You are in position to gain more than you lose. You are likely to take the best deal because it there are always more than one possible deals. Same in marriage. I am of the opinion that marriage for many people is a pointless legal, medieval, and economic trap. However, if you choose to marry then don't do it because you fear that (a) you can't get anyone else better; (b) you'll never have children; (c) there are no other living options; (d) you will disappoint your family if you don't; or (e) you will lose money, status, or prestige. If you get hitched out fear of any of the above you are a 100 times more likely to end up in any one or many of the above named situations anyways. If you get hitched out of fear then you are more likely to get into a sucker relationship that you will be miserable dealing with. If you get hitched out of fear the other partner will always have the lead in the power differential in the relationship. If you get married out of fear then you don't have enough chips on the table and eventually your spouse will know that and leave you for someone else who does. Trust me. In the end, it's never worth it.



Speaking of Clemens. Roger Clemens linked with country star Mindy McCready? What??? Rocket Roger hooking up with Mindy when she was 15 and he was something like 28? What??? How much more sick and disturbing does this all have to get? First, a steroid and HGH fiend. Now, a sex offender preying on teenage girls? I need more time to rant on this then I have tonight. The biggest thing to say about this is that I do not know how this whole thing could get any worse for Roger the Flasher. But, there's always tomorrow.



Now your Zito-Jones update:

BARRY ZITO

I actually started to feel sorry for this beatnik hippie pot guy until I re-freshed my memory of how much salary he is raking in this year ($14.5 million). Barry made us proud this week by getting lit up twice this week. His line for the week: 6 2/3 innings, 13 earned runs, 13 hits, six walks, two losses.

W-L: 0-6 ERA: 7.53 SO: 11 WHIP: 1.95

ANDRUW JONES

Andruw had a better week than Barry, but not by much. He hit .130 with no homers, one RBI, and eight strike outs this past week. To top it all off he fouled a ball off his calf.

AVG.: .159 HR: 1 RBI: 4