"Images of Concrete Irrationality"

True dream, except for one part I'm embellishing:

I'm at a large outdoor gathering. Beautiful clear day skies are blue. It could be the infield at a large NASCAR race one weekend, or maybe a travelling rock and roll festival like Ozzfest or the old Lollapalooza, but there are no freaky-looking people hanging out, just guys and gals and kids in shorts, ballcaps, and tee-shirts, camped out or bivouaced with little tents they bought at Wal-mart and milling about, waiting for I don't know what to start already.

And suddenly in the middle distance I see Phil Garner among the crowd. His mustache isn't quite so bushy and he's got those ringlets under his ears like the Orthodox Jews, but no question it's Phil Garner. He's wearing an orange IPOD T-shirt, and he's seated on an electric scooter, like that Lark thing that the horrendously fat chef Paul Prudhomme gets around on, or maybe it's that obnoxious Segway thing like Gob from Arrested Development uses.

Either way, I call out "Phil! Phil Garner," but he's already put his vehicle in gear and is moving away from me.

Fortunately, the terrain is somewhat hilly and rocky, and it's very easy for me to jog a little bit, and catch up to Garner, and I do, and say, "hey, what's up, Phil Garner?

And he says, "some thief has stolen our road OPS. . ."

*****

True dream, there, yeah . . . .

And speaking of little surrealistic details, just got back my pictures from the Astros-Marlins series. Here's a picture of the Diamond Vision back when Lance was struggling twice as much as he is currently:

Fair enough, but wait! What's that thing next to Berkman's HEAD? Let's take a closer look:

I think that this image (which reminds me most of Gazoo from the Flintstones in his little spaceship) is intended by the Marlins folks who handle such things to suggest and otherwise represent the admittedly shadowy concept of "Astro," and fails miserably. I mean, the slanty, almond-shaped eyes sorta --almost-- imbue the graphic with a creepy Area 51 look, but in the end, it's just really cheesy.

Of course, as South Florida Phillies fans know, it could have been much more cheesy. At least they don't use a full-on Philly Cheesesteak as our background. . . . Phillies fans should be both outraged AND disgusted.