Lady? Check. Baseball? Check. Knuckler?! Check!

What's not to like about this little tidbit, B&E readers? First of all, it's about a woman. I like women. Secondly, it's about baseball. Gosh, I do like baseball. Thirdly, it's about a knuckleball pitcher. I do love a good knuckleball.

When you roll those things into one, you get Eri Yoshida, an 18-year-old knuckleballer in Japan, who might just become the first female professional baseball player. Watch the video. Like all videos in Japanese it's genuinely confusing and oddly compelling.

Man, I'm glad spring training is here.

Even though the Mets star centerfielder and shortstop are being interviewed by investigators about a doctor who allegedly gave out steroids (or something akin to it), and the star closer is out with pink eye.

Really? Pink eye? Jesus, guys, get it together.

I Love This Place

A couple of years ago, I got a second-hand story in which a Thai man said that the restaurant SriPraPhai had "the best Thai food outside of Thailand." That, B&E readers, is a freakin' endorsement.

SriPraPhai is truly outstanding, especially if authenticity is what you're looking for in your Thai food experience. It's not so far from where the missus and I live in Queens, and honestly we could stand to go much more often than we do.

I'm meeting some college friends there this weekend, and I needed to give them directions, so I went to the SriPraPhai website to get the exact address. That was when I happened upon the "About Us" portion of the website.

It's a cheap shot (and a little offensive) to mock immigrants for poor English or less-than-stellar writing abilities. So I'm going to (mostly) let that go without comment.

Yes, the grasp on English is tenuous ("Not until a couple of years later when these American companies started their business directly in Thailand bringing the price differentiation closer") and tense usage gets confusing ("It was not until middle of 2003 that she has an opportunity to buy building on both of her sides").

But this biography of Sripraphai Tipmanee does its job well: it makes me want to eat at the restaurant. It's upbeat. It's positive. It constantly discusses its service to Thai people first (authenticity!).

It doesn't even matter that it says "About Us" and discusses only one person. I'd love to know more about the restaurant itself, but I'm just going to need to go back again and again to make my discoveries.

Things Are Different in Europe, But...

People are complex and multidimensional. Relationships between complex, multidimensional individuals can be messy. And there are certain cultural mores in Europe that seem surprising to our Puritanical American sensibility (some of you may remember Francois Mitterand's wife and mistress mourning together over his grave in France).

Still, even with all of these things in mind, I suspect that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi is a gaping asshole.

Obama on Gaza?

Anyone else out there wanting to hear from the President-elect on this one?

I know we've only got one president at a time, the economy continues to tank, the first daughters are about to start at a new school, and blah, blah, blah, blah, but um... Israel has invaded Gaza. I'd like to know what an Obama Administration might do about such a thing.

Man, But I Do Love a Knuckleball

A five-foot, hundred fifteen pound 16-year-old pitcher has become the first woman drafted to play professional baseball in Japan with men. Eri Yoshida's secret? A wicked, side-arm knuckleball.

More pitchers should throw a knuckleball. It keeps catchers on their toes, it goes wherever it wants to, and when it fails to flail, it gets hit and hit hard. It's the perfect recipe for a fantastic baseball game.

I want Yoshida to pitch for the Mets. I really do. Someone get on the horn with Omar Minaya.

Dude, We Can Totally Go to Iceland!

When I make this whole financial crisis about me (because, after all, what is a blog if not a vehicle for narcissism), I see some silver linings.

The missus and I rent, we have debt, and we have no savings or retirement plans or anything. We do have good jobs with relative job security. Based on bshort's explanation of the economy in the comments below, this puts us in a pretty decent position with regard to this here recession.

Well, there's even better news. Some of you may remember that the missus and I went to Sweden last year. When we were exploring places to go, Iceland was actually pretty near the top of the list, but with the weak-ass dollar and the strong-ass kroner in Iceland, we just couldn't freakin' afford it.

But now Iceland's broke! The Icelandic kroner is tanking, the government has taken control of all the banks, and the Lutheran leaders of this Lutheran nation are calling for a return to traditional values (which I suspect means something a little different in Iceland than it does here).

Bring on the hot springs and long summer days and Ring Road and reindeer meat! Hell, I'm even (culturally if not religiously) Lutheran, so bring on the Lutherans!

Yeah, So I Watched the Debate

I have one little question. Both of these fellas want Georgia to be in NATO. (I'm assuming they meant the country, not the state within the U.S.) If Georgia had been in NATO a couple months ago, wouldn't we be at war with Russia right now?

I'm still voting for "that one."

Bruce LeeRoy vs. Chow Yun Fatchmo!

Once upon a time, in South Africa, Chinese immigrants were known as Chinese immigrants. Then, with the establishment of apartheid in the 1940s, the Afrikaner government classified the Chinese as "colored." In the 1970s, Taiwan established economic ties to South Africa, and Taiwanese immigrants were "honorary whites."

Because no one could tell the difference between the Taiwanese and the Chinese, things got a little easier for the Chinese in South Africa. They still had no rights, mind you, but they also had the honor of sharing the white facilities with a bunch of racist, cracker-ass bitches. Lucky, lucky Chinese.

So when apartheid ended in the 1990s, the Chinese were lumped together with whitey and therefore denied the benefits available to other "colored" groups.

Well, no longer. On Wednesday, Chinese South Africans were reclassified as "black."

Maybe this explains why there are suddenly so many Chinese Soul Food restaurants cropping up in New York City.

(Thanks to my esteemed Chinese-American Art Director at work for the link and the ensuing smartass IM conversation. Bruce LeeRoy was all him.)