cookie-lady's Blog

True, we are only a couple of days into the 2008 Major League Baseball season, but there are some familiar names absent from any roster.

Who can blame Roger Clemens for retiring after all that gossip columnist Jose Canseco, [self-proclaimed narc of baseball] has put him and his family through?  Who can blame the Yankees for not trying to sign him for another season? 

Who would have ever thought that there would be a bigger scandal in baseball than that of the 1919 "Black Sox" and the 8 men who threw the Series with Cincinnati.  "Shoeless Joe Jackson, Lefty Williams, Chick Gandil, Freddie McMullin, Buck Weaver, Swede Risberg, Happy Felsch and Eddie Cicotte look like angels compared to Canseco.  What the Sox did was very wrong, but what Canseco is doing is ruining lives and careers forever.

But, the big question:  Where is Mike Piazza?  Injured at the start of the season 2007, Piazza returned from the DL to play out the season with the Oakland Athletics, but has not resurfaced since, and not picked up by the A's in 2008.

Rumor had it that Piazza, who owns homes in the Miami area, might be signed to a contract with the Florida Marlins as a DH in 2008.  The Marlins could have used the help in the opener against the NY Mets.  The game was a close one NY 5, FLA 4.  Piazza might have been able to zing one out of the park.  After all, it was at Shea, Piazza's old stomping grounds and  the Mets, some of his old team mates.  Piazza played with the Marlins for a short stint in the 90s before moving on to his very successful career with the Mets.


The earliest MLB teams may re-sign players that were released is May 15, 2008 and after that teams may wheel and deal with other teams to create the perfect storm. 

With the misery and havoc created by Canseco and his delusional claims, baseball needs a hero.  Baseball needs a Mr Clean, a Boy Scout, a stand up citizen.  Baseball needs Piazza.

Will the Marlins have a shot at making it out of the familiar slot of last in the league?  They might, but the organization needs all the help it can get and Piazza is a hitter, one destined to the Hall of Fame, and right now, a hitter without a team.

Is it just me or is baseball fever about ready to take hold?

It's a little more that 3 months now that NCAA Football ended its season, now with hoops drawing to a close, is there any hope for us who love the competition of sport?

YES!  Major league baseball opened for business officially March 31st for the 2008 season. 

While we do not have our own MLB team in Orlando, our fine city has played host to many of MLB's finest during the Atlanta Braves Spring Training camp, with games at Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex. 

Tickets are fairly priced, a little pricey compared to what you'd pay going to see the Minor League Jacksonville Suns play, but think of the savings in gas.  If you missed the season at Disney for the Braves this year, don't miss it next year.  It's great family fun.

If you are up to the commute, the Tampa Bay [Devil] Rays put on a good show and the stadium is nice, but lacks the beauty of being outdoors enjoying a game.  On the other hand, mid-July and August, there's probably not one fan or player that isn't quite thankful for the covered venue at Tropicana Field.

While most players have been signed to lucrative contracts already, there are a few that have not, notably the great Mike Piazza, former catcher turned DH [designated hitter] most recently with the Oakland Athletics, but for now, a hitter without a team.  Piazza was injured shortly into the season last year, but returned to knock several out of the park for the A's, but not enough to help their season in 2007.

The NY Mets are looking good in 2008, but we've seen that before, too.  Who will ever be able to forget, though Met Fans would like to, the 27 game lead the team had in 2007, only to not make the playoffs.  It is was it is, or was what is was, and that was a debacle of a season and championship that should have belonged completely to the Mets.  The "Bad Guys" of the 1986 Mets could have lent a little good Karma to the team in 2007. 

Yankee fans will still mourn the loss of Joe Torre, who signed on to help lead the Dodgers to a more victorious year, but Yank fans will still have a hand full of aces with Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon and Alex Rodriguez [A-Rod], if that miserable Jose Canseco will leave them out of his ridiculous gossip novel and accusations long enough so they can focus and play the game.

Ah, yes!  The Florida Marlins, finishing near last place, save 2003 [only 10 games out of first place in the division].  Will 2008 be the year of the Marlin?  South Floridians can only hope, and hope, and hope.  Maybe prayer would help.

Take me out to the ballgame!  Buy me some juice and a healthy snack, I'll be glad that I never get fat.  And it's Root, root, root for the home team, if they don't win it's a sham, cause it's ten, fifteen, twenty mill and more paid to play the ole ballgame.

Maybe I chose the wrong career.  "Batting fourth....Cookie..." oh, wait, it's still the "Boys of Summer,"  isn't it.  That just may change one day. 

Hey, Marlins, if you need a DH....I am still available.  Couldn't hurt.

What kind of man has to discredit others to make himself feel better and sell books?  Well, if you are a Yankee fan, you already know the answer...Jose Canseco.

In his latest tyrant, Canseco claims that he introduced Alex Rodriguez [3b-NYY] to a steroid distributer.  While Canseco does not come right down to accusing A-Rod of juicing, he plants a bad seed in the mind of the reader in an effort to bring A-Rod down, just as he has attempted to bring down Roger Clemens and others.

Well, this time, it ain't gonna work!

All of us have been to parties or events where people are introduced to others.  Big deal!  It doesn't mean anything.  It's not like A-Rod sought out this person.  It wasn't  a party arranged to match up potential buyers like a Tupperware party!  For goodness sake!  It was a gathering during the holidays, that's it, nothing more.

Canseco should be ashamed of himself!  What is he doing to America's favorite pastime?  Answer: he is doing all he can to make money, and in doing so, he is making a mockery of the game to a degree, and ruining the lives of many good players.

This time Canseco is way off base.  A-Rod does not appear to be a juicer; he's thin and fit and he still has a neck!  If you look at athletes and others that have admitted to steroid use, they are abnormally bulky in the legs and the real telling feature to me, they have no neck.  Case in point Lyle Alzado, who admitted to juicing and eventually paid the price for using by ruining his health which led to his death at age 43.  Look at pictures of Alzado and you will see it, no neck.

Personally, I am sick of Canseco and his tattle-tale behavior.  He's not the cop of MLB!  Just who does he think he is!?  Why is he doing this?  Is it because his own career stunk so bad that his MLB career was over in 2001?  Is it because he can't seem to get enough votes to get him on the ballot for the Hall of Fame?  Maybe it's because the only way he could get back into baseball was in the minor-minor league organization Golden Baseball League, and specifically, in 2006, with a team called the San Diego Dawgs.

Canseco has become a bitter [sort of old] man, jealous and vindictive.  Someone's got to stop him and get him to shut his trap. 

If there is a baseball God in heaven, he will bring Canseco to task, and get him out of baseball once and for all. 

Canseco's behavior is an atrocity, an abomination, a disgrace. Maybe he's PMS-ing!  He's worse than a third rate movie critic reviewing a b-movie.  Truly a loser.

JOSE, if you are out there, for the love of the game, shut up already and for goodness sake, GET SOME HELP!  There are plenty of medications out there that can help you!  A little Prozac may get you over the rough times that have brought you to this dark place in your life.  That and maybe some good friends.  Oh, wait....you have no friends...you strung them all up in front of America and Congress.

What kind of man has to discredit others to make himself feel better and sell books?  Well, if you are a Yankee fan, you already know the answer...Jose Canseco.

In his latest tyrant, Canseco claims that he introduced Alex Rodriguez [3b-NYY] to a steroid distributer.  While Canseco does not come right down to accusing A-Rod of juicing, he plants a bad seed in the mind of the reader in an effort to bring A-Rod down, just as he has attempted to bring down Roger Clemens and others.

Well, this time, it ain't gonna work!

All of us have been to parties or events where people are introduced to others.  Big deal!  It doesn't mean anything.  It's not like A-Rod sought out this person.  It wasn't  a party arranged to match up potential buyers like a Tupperware party!  For goodness sake!  It was a gathering during the holidays, that's it, nothing more.

Canseco should be ashamed of himself!  What is he doing to America's favorite pastime?  Answer: he is doing all he can to make money, and in doing so, he is making a mockery of the game to a degree, and ruining the lives of many good players.

This time Canseco is way off base.  A-Rod does not appear to be a juicer; he's thin and fit and he still has a neck!  If you look at athletes and others that have admitted to steroid use, they are abnormally bulky in the legs and the real telling feature to me, they have no neck.  Case in point Lyle Alzado, who admitted to juicing and eventually paid the price for using by ruining his health which led to his death at age 43.  Look at pictures of Alzado and you will see it, no neck.

Personally, I am sick of Canseco and his tattle-tale behavior.  He's not the cop of MLB!  Just who does he think he is!?  Why is he doing this?  Is it because his own career stunk so bad that his MLB career was over in 2001?  Is it because he can't seem to get enough votes to get him on the ballot for the Hall of Fame?  Maybe it's because the only way he could get back into baseball was in the minor-minor league organization Golden Baseball League, and specifically, in 2006, with a team called the San Diego Dawgs.

Canseco has become a bitter [sort of old] man, jealous and vindictive.  Someone's got to stop him and get him to shut his trap. 

If there is a baseball God in heaven, he will bring Canseco to task, and get him out of baseball once and for all. 

Canseco's behavior is an atrocity, an abomination, a disgrace. Maybe he's PMS-ing!  He's worse than a third rate movie critic reviewing a b-movie.  Truly a loser.

JOSE, if you are out there, for the love of the game, shut up already and for goodness sake, GET SOME HELP!  There are plenty of medications out there that can help you!  A little Prozac may get you over the rough times that have brought you to this dark place in your life.  That and maybe some good friends.  Oh, wait....you have no friends...you strung them all up in front of America and Congress.

It's almost a year now.  I decided that I would go to a local dentist rather than commuting back to LA to see my lifelong dentist as I've done for 15 years.

Mistake!

After a year of surgery and drilling, I am no closer to being finished with this dental work then I was the day I walked in!  At first, I thought it was neat that the dentist was a perfectionist, but  after seeing my permanent crowns being sent back to the lab a ridiculous sixth time, I am starting to wonder.

I have paid the dentist over 20k!!!  Still, I have nothing to show except bad temporaries that keep falling out. 

What can I do?  I am sick of this!  I have no way of knowing if the dentist is just really incompetent or if it is the lab screwing up, but I think having had to pay "up front" for the work and seeing no lasting results so far is wrong.

Any ideas my blogging buddies?

It's been 40 long days of Lent, laying low and holding to my commitment of not blogging [my Lenten promise], but with Easter, joy, and now I am restored!  Now I blog again!

Since I last blogged, much has changed in our community.  What is this world coming to?  No doubt we are all are feeling a pinch in our wallets, if not yet, each of us will before long.  Which brings me to the question:  At what price, freedom?

From where I am, I don't see an oil shortage driving the cost of a barrel to record highs of upwards of $110; all I see is greed.  Well, I'll be darned if I will let the thieves ruin my life.

While we can each take a stand and drive less, we're still going to see the price of oil affecting us in costs that are passed along to the end consumer.  From the supermarket to air fares, the rising price of oil will be something not one of us can escape.

So, I ask...At what price, freedom?

Short of developing community co-ops that would allow us to trade and barter among ourselves for goods and services, what can we do to thwart skyrocketing costs that are on the horizon?

If we encourage Congress to push for a bill that would allow drilling in ANWR [Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge] it might help, but there hasn't been a refinery built in the United States in over 30 years, so how would we manage and refine crude oil?  It's a nice idea, but it's too little, too late. 

We should have been looking at this decades ago as we were setting ourselves up to be oil junkies at the mercy of a bunch of Middle Eastern countries who ruthlessly realize oil to be our Achilles Heel and have no mercy when it comes to a commodity they know we are willing to pay for.

How much is too much?  What price will be the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back when it comes to fuel?

I am sick of it.  I am flipping mad, too.  But, even if I take a stand and start riding the bus or taking my bike on shorter trips, it will have little impact.  How long will it be before the cost of fuel is reflected in the cost of a can of soup or a new suit? 

The rising cost of fuel is already being passed on to the consumer in airfares, with airlines tacking on a fuel surcharge of between $10-50 on each ticket.  Our domestic carriers are feeling the pinch and just when they were finally rebounding from the associated problems that followed September 11th.

We need to find a solution and it needs to make a lasting impression on our economy and answers the question: At what price, freedom?  We already know the cost of bondage to oil producing countries.  It's time to figure a way out of our dependence on Middle East oil.

Heaven help us!  We have got to find a way out of this mess!

Well, after a ton of soul searching, I have decided to put blogging on the list of things I will give up for Lent.

It has become such a fun and meaningful part of my day, so giving it up will be significant in my commitment to my faith.  It's not a requirement of my faith, it's more of a discipline so that one can focus on the last 40 days of Christ's earthy life and the journey to His death on the Cross and His Resurrection from the grave, celebrated on Easter Day.

I will miss you all!  Keep on blogging and I hope to see lots of your blogs on Fox 35 News!

See you on Easter!  In the meantime....happy Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day!

They're popping up everywhere!  One by one, the busiest intersections and even some stretches of the interstate are being outfitted with cameras that catch drivers at their best...or should that be, their worst.

I will be the first to admit it...I speed when the roads are empty, usually late at night when I am driving home from work.  It's not something I would do if I didn't think it was safe and I don't do it because I am just in a big hurry to get home.  I do it because I can!  My car is safe and it likes to go fast.  The expressways are set up for higher speeds than 55 mph and it is a shame to see all that open highway being wasted anything under 70 mph.

This behavior has come at a price, though, yes, I got a ticket for going 68 mph on the BeeLine one January morning a few years back.  It was 4am!  I was on my way to work, not another car on the road, save one miserable Orange County cop with a mad-on for the department for putting him on the night shift.  So, he took it out on me.

I didn't fight the ticket....I had earned it!  And earned it many a Saturday at 4am on that road.

Now, cameras are going up all over the place tracking all sorts of driver misbehavior.  You won't even know you've been caught until that lovely letter with a photo of you and your car shows up in the mailbox.

There's so little we can get away with anymore, and I don't suggest driving unsafely, but once in a while, you just have to exceed the posted speed limit or push the traffic light to orange teetering on red. 

If I were a cop, I would be a little worried that these cameras could be taking away jobs.  I am surprised their unions are not in an uproar over this.

Is it just me or are these traffic traps just wrong?  Is it an invasion or is it doing what's best for the community? 

The brave young men and women that serve our country in the nation's military, do so for very little pay and a lot of risk. The perks are few and far between for them.

Question, if they are old enough to serve our country shouldn't they be old enough to be served an adult beverage even if under the legal drinking age of 21?

Certainly, I don't want to encourage the use or abuse of alcohol, but if one of these kids wants a beer, I think they should be allowed to have it.

What do you think and why?

Okay, bloggers....I need your help!

My daughter is getting married! [Not to worry, I was a child bride.]

While she will be married in our church, the reception site is still being decided.

She has chosen 8-8-08, sort of a knock of of all those 7-7-07 weddings last year. Because 8/8/8 is a Friday, we are setting the time of the ceremony at either 5 or 6 pm so family, friends and coworkers will be able to make it.

This throws us into a formal evening affair, right? We want to have a grand affair, but on a little bit of a budget, and get the most bang for our buck.

The church is in the Windermere/Dr Phillips area, so the reception site should be within the same vicinity, give or take a couple of miles.

We plan a guest list of about 125-150, many from out of town, as far away as Alaska.

Question...just how negotiable are the prices we are getting from these hotels? What are the things I need to ask and how do I get them to work with me on price? And the photographer!

ANY ADVICE YOU CAN BLOG IS WELCOME!

WHAT LOCATIONS CAN YOU RECOMMEND?

After our 4 hours of Fox 35 Morning is over, get your ID and go vote.

It's the one freedom no one can tell you how to use, but you have to use it.

Review the issues;  MyFoxOrlando has made this easy to do! 

Next, and now the hard part, take a deep breath and slowly, step away from the computer.  The blogs will all be here waiting for you when you get back, promise!

Freedom truly is in the balance, so why pass up the chance to let your voice be heard? 

There won't be a second chance, make it count, vote!

One by one, they are dropping from the Presidential race radar.

Cheer up!  If it's good enough for Emmit Smith, it's good enough for a candidate!

Dancing with the Democrats!  The only competition that matches candidates toe-to-toe where the steps are tricky, the floor [and chins for some] waxed and all the competitors are just one phone call away from elimination. 

The Texas Two Step....Florida Flaminco...Charleston Shuffle....you'll see dances you never even knew existed!  Next week, The Super Tuesday Twist....! 

Yes, your favorites won't miss a beat so they won't miss your vote!  It's Dancing with the Democrats!

Not valid in California and Oklahoma, unless accompanied by ultra liberal or conservative pollsters.  Approved for use only as directed, call your doctor or health care professional if symptoms of unsureness persist.

Why this hoopla over early voting?

It seems like a sin to me.  Just about like opening presents for Christmas Day, or finding out the gender before your baby is born.

It just seems wrong!

What do you think?

It's time to lay it on the table....show all my cards...I love Fox 35 Orlando and in particular, myfoxorlando.com/blogs.

Every week, we have the chance to vote for Pet of the week, Baby of the week, Cool School of the week, so why not go one step further and have a Blogger of the week?  It makes perfect sense to me.  We spend a lot of time [maybe too much] reading each other's posts, and frankly, you all are not only entertaining, you're downright smart!

What do you think my fellow bloggers? Wouldn't that be sort of fun?

Keep on blogging!

Say what you want, but in just a few weeks, we Floridians will vote in the Presidential Primary.  It's not the biggest of elections, but it is important, no less.

For those that have not already started doing a little research on the candidates, there is still enough time to do so.

From where I sit, still registered as a Dem, I am casting mine for Obama, at least that is the way I'm leaning now.  He's the lesser of the evils on the Dem side.  But you Republicans!  Oh my, do you have a smorgesboard to choose from!

Okay, I am now out of the closet as an Obama fan.  How about you?  Who are you looking to vote for and why?