Salary cap needed?

Well the Yankees have done it again. Busted open the check book and paid over $400 million on 3 free agents this year. People all over the baseball world are crying for a salary cap. Baseball as we know it is over!

This is what I think about the players NY brought in. CC is good, better in the NL. He had a horrible start last season. It'd be interesting to see how New York handles him if he does the same. AJ Burnett. Whoopee! He's a Ben Sheets, he'll be hurt in a week. Mark Texiera... I guess this guy's incredible? I don't know, I just don't see these three players as some dominating force that's gonna march the Yankees right to the world series. To watch them fail this year would be hilarious. It'd be a hell of a side story. The past few years I could of cared less about the Yankees but now I have a reason to hate them again, and that makes the sport more entertaining to me. A salary cap is not needed. Free agents aren't the only thing that makes baseball teams win. It's sad that small market teams have trouble keeping their favorite players around but so be it. Small market teams have found a lot of success while the big spenders -- NY, Boston, Anaheim, Cubs fail. People can whine about how teams like the pirates and royals will never have a shot but hell, lets look at football. We got the Lions and the Raiders. Poorly managed teams are just that... poorly managed teams. Throwing money at the problem won't fix it.

Another point. I love baseball because of the amount of strategy involved. Before every pitch, there are a million scenarios going on in managers heads. It's fun as a fan to second guess their decisions. The same holds true for building a team. The art of building a small market team is fascinating to me. It's no fun knowing that you can just go ahead and buy the best 3 guys in the market and maybe bring your city a world series. I love the hope that the minor league brings. It's also fun knowing that you built a team "legitimately." Our team is made up of true Milwaukee brewers. Most of them know nothing else, and I love that.

So free agency aside, what do we have to look forward to next year? I think we got a good team. Everyone was optimistic at the beginning of last season and the only significant player we're missing is Sheets. We lose Sheets every year, who cares. I think a ton our players underperformed -- especially during the second half. Weeks, Hart, Hall, and Fielder are better hitters than they showed us last season. Braun obviously was hampered by that rib cage injury during the second half. Maybe the new manager can get the best out of these bats. If that happens, look out. I'm excited to watch Brewer baseball next year and you should be too. GO BREWERS!

Disgusted and Annoyed

The Packers followed their 2008 script all over again. Suck at the beginning of the game. Look good for 15 minutes. Lose in a game ending drive. This is the most pathetic packer season I ahve ever watched. Yesterday was the first time I can ever remember choosing not to even watch. I don't even know what happened in the second half nor do I care. This team was an absolute joke this year and because of them we're forced to watch the Vikings act like they accomplished something this year. The Defensive line has been a joke since the days of Reggie White in Green Bay. I haven't seen the threat of a pass rush in 15 years. We have plenty of cap room to grab free agents but we keep doing this draft thing. Drafting good players is nice but it seems like in the past 5 years we haven't drafted anyone who'd be considered a star in the nfl. I think that's a pretty bad track record. I also think this has nothing to do with the whole Favre thing. That situation was what it was and we did what we had to there. It's the rest of the team that sucked. Thanks for nothing Green Bay. We'll see how you look in 8 months. The only thing I have holding me over until baseball season is a slight interest in Marquette Bball but that doesn't even get exciting until March. This sucks.

Restaurant Reviews

Katie and I have been to a ton of Milwaukee restaurants over the past couple months and I figured I'd tell you what I thought out of a 5 star rating system.

Chez Jacques - French food. Really like the design of the place. It's located on 1st street kind of in the middle of nowhere. Awesome wall art in all the different dining rooms, and I hear they have a pretty cool outdoor seating area, but it was too cold outside . Simple menu, doesn't overwhelm you with too many choices. We loved the french onion soup and the escargot. Didn't think the entrees were too impressive. Katie went with the classic beef burgundy and I did some veal medalian special. Both entrees were tough. Presentation was pretty weak. Katie's almost looked like a pile of alpo. Food wasn't terrible but it just wasn't that good. Waitress was nice and I'm pretty sure the owner was the french guy hanging out at the bar. I like it when the owners are present. Wine was fairly priced. So I'll go ahead and give this one 3 stars.

Riviera Maya - Mexican food. This place is down in bayview. Great place to go if you'd want a non rushed, classier mexican location. They're supposedly known for their various moles -- pretty much just mexican sauces. They have a standard mexican menu with the whole taco and enchilada deal. Then they give you the mole options. You choose from a list of 5 moles and then pick a meat or veggie filler. All entrees start with a deliciously simple and complimentary tortilla soup. I went with the verde sauce with their pork and I think katie did a chocolate mole with a vegetarian filler that consisted of peppers, corn, and rice. We both liked the food, nothing mind blowing, but it was pretty good. Service was slow/confusing/inattentive but the food and atmosphere made up for that. Almost forgot, they have a pretty unique margarita list. Wasn't really a fan myself but katie seemed to enjoy hers. And they have the best flan around. I recommend you check this place out. I'll give it 3.5 stars.

Water Buffalo - Crap food. The service, location, and decor was nice. The food was awful. We got a steamed clam appetizer to start, I thought they tasted like melted rubber and salt. I tried squirting the lemon from my water on them. That made them slightly more tolerable. Our entrees were blah. I'm pretty sure everything they serve at this place is shipped to them frozen and they just reheat it. Seems like no prep work at all is done in this kitchen. Katie got the ahi tuna. Crappy frozen reheated fish. I got some pasta dish, it was so bad I can't even recall what it was supposed to be. Something stuffed with something. It's like they threw every spice and seasoning they could find in the thing. The menu did have a variety of sandwiches. I'd recommend going that route if you are forced to go here. Can't really screw up a sandwich... or can you? If anyone can, it'd be them. Food was over priced for it's quality level. 2 stars.

Harry's Bar and Grill - American food. I really like this place. It is what it is. The menu is a little large for my liking but the staff was friendly, the food was simple and good, and everything was fairly priced. No real surprises here, you know what you're getting and you usually end up liking it. Katie got a club sandwich and whined about how it was too big to eat but that's about it for complaints. I did some ahi tuna sandwich. It tasted like I thought it would and seeing how I ordered it... that's a good thing. I'd recommend this place more as a lunch spot opposed to dinner. I heard people complain about the place poorly handling large crowds during dinner. I'll give this one 4 stars.

Mikey's - American food. You can find this place right by cathedral square next to Louise's. Loved the food, service was good, decor sucked big time. I don't like dining and listening to techno dance beats all night. Music was so loud it made it difficult to talk. I ordered a veal medallion deal that was served alongside a mushroom risotto. Absolutely loved it. Katie got a chicken cordon bleu type thing. She wasn't a fan so she let me finish hers, I loved that as well. We started off with a tuna tartar appetizer which pretty much every new restaurant in the word is featuring and I thought it was great. Again, Katie wasn't the biggest fan. I thought the food was good enough to make up for the annoying atmosphere so I'll go ahead and give this place 4 stars as well.

Mimmas - Italian food. This place has been around for awhile over on brady street. The service was decent, the food was decent, the wine list is pretty impressive. Got things going with a bottle of valpolicella. Their wine list is almost 100% italian and Katie and I are mainly familiar with California wines so we kind of closed our eyes and picked one. We both loved it. As for the food... Katie and I started with a beef carpaccio appetizer. Excellent. It was the largest carpaccio plate I've ever seen. We then had a soup and salad. I went with their cioppino and Katie had a house salad with a balsamic dressing that she loved. Soup was good but a little too acidic. I got a lobster stuffed ravioli topped with all sorts of seafood. The entree was ok, but I expected something mindblowing, so i was a little upset. Katie got something in the line of a chicken primavera. Overall she liked it but I think she expected better as well. I'd expect a little better out of a $100+ dinner, but it was good. One complaint: the menu consists of like 70 pastas. That may be an exaggeration but it was ridiculous. You needed a good 15 minutes just to get through the thing. A lot of the entrees were similar and I felt the menu could be dumbed down a bit. I'll give this one 3.5.

Rustico - pizza place. Not a fan at all. Terrible service, boring pizza, crap wines, awesome location. If they've got anything going for them it's the fact that they're cheap. We weren't even offered water. I have no idea how the place can afford to pay their third ward rent. I wouldn't be surprised to see this place take a dive in the next year. HORRIBLE. Please don't go here. Oh, I guess I should mention that Katie absolutely loved their caesar salad. So 1/2 star - for having a decent salad dressing.

Conejitos - Their pens don't lie. The best mexican food in the world. 5 stars. enough said.

I wrote this really quick and it's way too long to take the time to edit any mistakes. I apologize in advance for any gramatical frustrations acquired while reading this article. With that said... I think milwaukee has a very underrated dining scene that should be explored by all. Check these places out for yourself and let me know what you think.

My annual Blog xmas list

ok here we go.

1) Windows laptop. Still don't have one of these, eventhough I could easily afford to pick one up. I just never do. It'd be nice to have one though, not being able to watch tv and sit on the computer at the same time is horrible.

2) GPS. If you'd refer to blog posts from years past you'd see I was way above the trend on this one. I've been asking for one of these suckers since 1999. What's up with that? Seems like everyone else is getting these as gifts. I wonder why the one person who consistantly asks for one is kept out of the loop. Maybe it's because I suck.

3) Can't go wrong with more heartburn pills. Right now I'm really high on omaprozole or however you spell it. It's the generic prilosec. Good stuff.

4) Someone to tell me what the hell's causing this rash.

5) A big bucket of whey protein. I keep buying these protein drinks from the gym whenever I'm done working out and Katie keeps yelling at me for it. It'd be nice to have a big bucket of the stuff at home so I can become massive without the marital inconveniences.

6) Hair

7) Brewers tickets. I'm always available Sundays.

8) I'd really like a nice coat. Not a winter coat, more like a leather casual type coat. Katie says I'd look stupid in one of these but I know I'd look good. Could also use a new black fleece. Any brand will do.

9) Gift cards. Lets go with best buy, bed bath and beyond, kohls, wal mart, real chili, and nature outfitters.

10) Canned skyline chili. Katie found out she could pick up goldstar chili online for way cheaper than the skyline. The only problem is the canned goldstar chili doesn't really taste like the canned skyline. This really bothers me because real goldstar chili tastes exactly like real skyline chili. Goldstar... what's up with that?

11) $$$

12) Shot-gun case and other useful hunting supplies -- bullets, gun cleaning kit, a deer.

13) A smaller, classier cd player. Katie hates my circa 1996 cd changer.

14) A house

15) Finally, a fat head of me eating a chili dog.

Ok that's all I can think of for now. In other news, I thought of other fads that have come and gone in my lifetime.
-Remember the NO FEAR! T-shirts? Those were awesome. Those and the ones that were like, "(insert sport here) is life, the rest is just details!" Way too many people had those shirts.
-Poker... I think people have really started to quit caring about this incredibly boring game. I'm guilty for jumping into this one unfortunatly.

How about some sports talk?! Or not. Rock on!