A Review of Nationals Park in Washington

When I graduated college, I had no aspirations of seeing Europe, the Seven Wonders (pick any of them, I'm sure there's like eight sets of Seven Wonders), mountains, or jungles. No, all I wanted to do was just wanted to see the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums. That might seem pretty bland (or "fitting", depending on your impression of me), but that's just who I am.

Yet, despite having a then-girlfriend-now-wife who has always been fond of traveling and enjoys going to baseball games, eight years passed without me seeing a new baseball stadium. In addition to U.S. Cellular, I've been to Wrigley, Progressive, Kauffman, Miller, and the Rogers Centre (the Skydome when I visited).

I had a work conference in Washington and the Nationals were playing the Braves, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finally cross a new one off the list. Here's notes on my experience at Nationals Park:

• The park has a very clean, new, yet unremarkable look to it. It was a pleasant place to be but it was certainly lacking in a "wow" factor. The outfield deck had plenty of bar/seating areas as well as ledges overlooking the park for you to eat and drink.
• The center field entrance gate:

• Views from my seat:

• The pitching matchup was Max Scherzer vs. Bud Norris, which seemed pretty one sided, but neither guy was on his game. Crooked numbers were posted in each of the first three half-innings.
• A.J. Pierzynski came to the plate in the top of the first and delivered a 2-run double off Scherzer. The dude can still hack it at the plate and this warms my heart.
• The hometown crowd LOVES Dusty Baker. This might be a "Not Matt Williams" effect, but he was cheered whenever he showed his face over the dugout. He also replied to the fans with a kind smile and wave. If he wasn't such a fucknuts with baseball decisions, I could see really loving rooting for Dusty Baker.
• The P.A. announcer was very unremarkable. On a scale of one to Gene Honda, I give him one-and-a-half stars.
• The Nats show the artist and title of each player's walk-up music. I think this is a great feature.
• On the subject of walk-up music, possibly my favorite choice was that of Wilson Ramos. He walks up to "Wilson" by Phish. The crowd chants "WIIILLLL-SSSOONNN" along with the music. An extra bonus: Ramos went 4-4 with 2 RBI, so the Wilson Ramos experience was thoroughly enjoyable.
• Bryce Harper walks up to "The Best Is Yet to Come" by Frank Sinatra. If the best is yet to come for Bryce Harper, we're talking about an inner-circle Hall of Famer.
• The Nationals' ushers don't let you walk down the aisles to your seats during an at-bat. I like this rule.
• Food! The Cell certainly beats the hell out of most ballparks when it comes to food. I asked for some advice in the RRRR regarding what to eat. At the suggestion of a South Side Sox commenter, I found the Island BBQ stand in centerfield that served jerk pork ribs and plantains.

• I could have done with more sauce and seasoning, but these were worth it, especially because I usually don't branch out at ballparks for food that much.  I enjoyed these from a neat outlook point in center field.

• The beer selection was just "eh". I drank mostly Goose Island IPA. It's a bit disappointing that I went with a Chicago beer in Washington, but the only interesting-looking thing they had that I never tried before was a stout, and I wasn't in the mood for a stout.
• I then got a burger from Steak Shack. This is the Smoke Stack burger with bacon, cherry peppers, and Shack Sauce. No cheese. Sorry I'm not sorry. The lighting's not great. Sorry I am sorry.

• "Root, root root for the NATIONALS" had a really bad ring to it during the 7th inning stretch. There really was never meant to be a third syllable there.
• Jonathan Papelbon was actually booed by a decent portion of the hometown crowd when he came on to pitch. He got the save, but all three outs were hard lineouts, one to each outfielder.
• The last out of the game? None other than Gordon Beckham, who pinch-hit in the pitcher's slot. I was quiet for most of the game being alone in an unfamiliar city, but I felt just fine giving him an earful. It was the only time I can remember cheering for Jonathan Papelbon. The Nats won 6-4.
• This was the first time I've ever been to a baseball game alone. It was an interesting experience being able to wander around as I pleased without regard to whether I was spending enough time with others. I'd much rather go to games with other people but there was a certain liberating aspect to it.

More pictures that I took:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (Spoilers)

Film adaptation (and Jennifer Lawrence) give The Hunger Games trilogy the fitting conclusion that the novels never had.

I read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games trilogy quite some time ago and greatly enjoyed the first installment as well as the second, Catching Fire.  Unfortunately, the third novel in the series, Mockingjay was an absolute disaster. It was a brutal slog of a read that intermixed uninteresting slow stretches with action that took place too quickly for it to truly resonate. The story that Collins chose to tell was admittedly a tough one to convey via text, and the extreme action of a war zone found in many chapters of the story was always better suited for the big screen than paper. Still, one can't help but feel that a superior author (e.g. Martin, Tolkien, Rowling) would have done a better job with the difficult wrap-up of such an enthralling series.  Collins fell short, but thankfully, Jennifer Lawrence and a good cast of actors did not.

I can't say I'm particularly surprised by that result because I enjoyed the first three films in the series probably equally as much as the accompanying novels.  It's a story that lends itself well to film, for sure, but I think that a common reaction to movies based off of literary works is, "Well, the book was better."  I never once got that sense in The Hunger Games trilogy. The movies managed to do the books justice, and in the case of Mockingjay (particularly Part 2), the film version exceeded expectations.

Of course, one thing that Mockingjay the movie had going for it that Mockingjay the novel did not is Jennifer Lawrence. She did such a great job of conveying the horrors and emotional trauma of war through her face and I can't say enough about her performance. From an entertainment perspective, Lawrence was able to keep me sucked in despite a plot built with obviously problematic elements. "Oh, hey Prim, guess you're randomly here in this war zone with us and.......now you're dead. Good seeing you for three seconds, I guess. That death was totally fitting for four installments' worth of character building."

Unlike Prim's death, the movie handled Finnick Odair's demise far, far better than the novel. The book versions of Catching Fire and Mockingjay did a great job of establishing Finnick as an unexpectedly sympathetic character, and he quickly became a favorite of mine while reading. Unfortunately, the novel Mockingjay wrote him off quickly as a death at the hands of the mutts, much the same as it did a few other nondescript characters in effectively the same scene. I always thought he deserved better. By contrast, the movie was able to paint Finnick as a hero, bravely fighting off monstrosities and even saving Katniss' life before he's dragged to his death. Rather similar to Cato's death in the first movie, Katniss kills Finnick (and the mutts) with an explosive, though this time it's out of love rather than mercy.

Admittedly, a lot of the details of the book escaped me over the course of these past five years (it was bad, remember!), but one scene that I was anxiously awaiting was Katniss' decision to kill Coin instead of President Snow at Snow's execution. The movie set this up very well, and you could even see a knowing grin on Snow's face (Donald Sutherland was consistently awesome throughout the four movies) before Katniss physically changed targets.

The conclusion of the story, involving Katniss' choice to remain with Peeta over Gale, made much more sense in the movie. The audience could see Peeta's slow return to normalcy over the course of the film and Katniss' growing distrust of Gale's methods and attitudes towards war and its victims. The ending of the Mockingjay novel was pretty confusing (to be fair, it's possible and even likely Collins intended to get the same effect as the film did, but she didn't, because the book was bad!) and felt pretty rushed after the action-packed scenes that preceded it. The ending of the movie felt far, far more natural and satisfying.

In the epilogue, we see Katniss and Peeta relaxing in a peaceful meadow with their two children.  In the first installment, Katniss insisted that she was never having kids, and it's implicit that the reason why is that she would never want to bring new life into the horrors of the world in which she lives. That she ultimately chose to have children is indicative that she approves of the new order established in Panem and that the world has become a better place as a result of her choice to assassinate a potential tyrant in Coin. It's as happy an ending as the trilogy could've had, I guess.

Mockingjay Part 2 suffers a bit from alternating dullness and rushes of action, but it was just going off of the source material, so it's hard to fault it all that much. It has plenty of excitement, feeling, and some nice character work (though I would've liked more Haymitch, because Haymitch is great).  It feels like a genuine horror movie when the squad is trekking through the sewer-like tunnels and has no shortage of touching moments between a cast of characters that are developed well for their limited screen time. It's far from a perfect movie, or even a great one, but it's a good, entertaining conclusion to a series that really deserves one.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Seven: "Inflatable"

In which we meet the biggest sucker of them all, Jimmy's own father.

A couple episodes back, Chuck mentioned in a conversation with Kim that Jimmy had stolen about $14,000 from his father's store.  In tonight's cold open, we get a lot of extra context around that.

In a flashback scene, we see Jimmy "working" in his dad's store (reading a Playboy when he should be sweeping). Jimmy overhears a conversation between his dad at the cash register and some guy spinning a sob story to try to con Jimmy's father out of five dollars. While Jimmy's dad is all too eager to help the man in whatever way he can, Jimmy sees the situation for what it is and pleads with his dad to not give the guy a handout, as he's seen this happen plenty already. Of course, Jimmy's dad doesn't listen and winds up giving the guy ten dollars.

Jimmy's dad runs to find spark plugs to help with the con artist's car, leaving Jimmy alone with him. It's clear to the con artist that Jimmy doesn't trust him, so before departing he says, "There are wolves and sheep in this world, kid.  Wolves and sheep.  Figure out which one you're gonna be."

When Jimmy's dad comes back and realizes the con artist left, Jimmy gives his father a look of utter disdain. Left alone with the cash register, Jimmy steals the eight dollars the con artist used to purchase cigarettes, and we're to believe that this is Jimmy's first of many thefts from the store. At that moment, Jimmy's figured out which one he's gonna be.

The thing is, while Jimmy may have despised his father for being such an easy mark, it's easy to respect a man who would rather risk getting conned than refusing to help someone in need. And while we may admire Jimmy's street smarts, an honest person can't believe that him stealing money from his father is in any way justifiable. The scene makes it more understandable, but it's still just plain wrong. We know from Chuck's story that it's Jimmy who causes the real harm to the store, not random con men pilfering Lincolns and Hamiltons.

The post-credits portion of the episode opens with a truly tough scene to watch. Jimmy represents Mike in his meeting with the prosecutors to explain that Mike will no longer claim that the gun in his confrontation with Tuco Salamanca actually belonged to Tuco. Jimmy tries to make Mike feel better about the incident and even offers to not collect for his services. Mike isn't having any of it -- he doesn't want to feel tied to anyone. Honestly, other than his family, it really doesn't seem like Mike has it in him to give a damn about anyone.

From there, Jimmy sets out to quit his job at Davis & Main, though when Omar points out that his signing bonus would need to be paid back, his mission changes to "get fired without cause". Putting the "colorful" in "colorful lawyer", he dresses up in his outlandish suits and we get a montage of all the things he does to try to get canned:

1. Wearing aforementioned suits
2. Running a loud juicer in the office and exploding said juicer all over a couple associates
3. Screaming Spanglish at a guy who's vacuuming at night, when the guy is from Michigan and speaks English just fine, thank you very much
4. Repeatedly taking shits in the bathroom and not flushing, under the excuse of water preservation
5. Playing the bagpipes in his office

The bagpipes turn out to be the final straw and Cliff cans Jimmy.  Jimmy can't come up with a reason for his actions besides explaining that he's a square peg.  On his way out, Jimmy rips a soda can out of Erin's hand and throws it in the garbage. Awesome.

After quitting, Jimmy goes to meet with Kim and tries to get her to not only quit HHM, but drop her pursuit of the Schweikart job and become partners with Jimmy as a new practice. Jimmy tells Kim that she's too good for a lateral move and goes so far as to call Rich Schweikart "Howard Hamlin by a different name". Before Kim can get on board, she wants to know whether Jimmy is going to "play it straight" or in their new endeavor, or, in a very apt choice of words given the previous montage, whether Jimmy is going to "be colorful".  Jimmy can't lie to her for more than a few seconds, and Kim ultimately rejects the offer in what's a pretty strong scene for her character.

Meanwhile, Stacey shows Mike an expensive house that's well beyond her means. Mike knows that Stacey faked the bullet hole that led her to trying to convince Mike that her neighborhood was unsafe, but just how much is he willing to let Stacey take advantage of him? We know he loves Kaylee more than anything, but even he needs to be aware that continuing to deal with drug gangs for money won't be any good for her, right?

Finally, Kim nails her interview with Schweikart. We discover she's from a small town on the Kansas/Nebraska border. That explains the Kansas City Royals shirt, at least. On her way out, she accidentally calls Rich "Howard". It's a moment that's more than a mere verbal slip-up. When Kim lets the wrong name slip, we come to understand that she knows Jimmy was right; Schweikart and Hamlin are really no different to her at all, and she's looking for a way to get out completely.

Kim smokes a cigarette on the roof of the building and rips her Wexler McGill business card in half. She has her idea -- go out on her own with Jimmy, but operate separately.  That way, both lawyers can practice the way they want to. It seems like a pretty reasonable proposal, but something about the ripped business card gives Jimmy pause, and the show cuts to the end credits before he gives his answer.

Bullet Points

• "Omar, that whole, uh, letter of resignation thing....I didn't mean that. Not a word. I..I'm so incredibly stressed out...I'm stressed out the wazoo."

• "Hey Cliff, for what it's worth, I think you're a good guy." Cliff: "For what it's worth, I think you're an asshole."

• Apparently Omar has kids. His last scene with Jimmy really shows how little we knew him

• Two straight episodes with no Chuck!?!?!? He better be back next week.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Six: Bali Ha'i

Per usual, let's break down the opening scene. Jimmy's having trouble sleeping at 1:09 AM and heads on over to the TV, where he gets to witness some late night commercials.  In a true "Hey look! It's 2002!" moment, we're treated to a Chia Pet ad, and after a few more channel changes, Jimmy comes upon a commercial produced by Davis & Main for their services in the Sandpiper case. It uses the boring blue wavy background pattern that Jimmy had mocked with Omar a few episodes earlier when he was plotting his own commercial.

Understandably, this compounds the sleeplessness issue and he wanders over to the fridge, smells some Chinese food, decides its gross, and puts it back in there for some reason rather than pitching it. The fridge itself has pretty much nothing in it, which is indicative that Jimmy's not truly settled into this home or this life. After a few rousing rounds of basketball/soccer spinoffs with those wicker balls he joked about with Kim a couple episodes back, it's time to go. Jimmy heads back to the tiny bed in his back-room office at the salon and falls right asleep. Not too subtle with the symbolism here, are we, Vince?

Meanwhile, Mike is finding himself in a bit of a bind. He refused Hector Salamanca's offer of $5,000 to lie and get Tuco out of his jail sentence. Now, Hector's flunkies are swarming his personal life and trying to intimidate him at every turn. In typical Mike fashion, he discovers that there are intruders in his house using carbon paper that he hid under the doormat along with a quick inspection of the door and knob.

In an extremely tense scene crafted by silence and great use of shadows, Mike figures out where Salamanca's guys are hiding by process of elimination and tricks them by turning on the TV (and filling the silent house with the voice of Billy Mays; it's still 2002!) from far away and drawing them out of their hiding place with their backs to him. It's thrilling to watch, but this is classic Mike Ehrmantraut we've been watching for years.

Mike might have shaken off that encounter, but THE COUSINS ARE BACK! The mostly silent and murderous duo from Breaking Bad intimidates Mike from a rooftop when he's hanging out Kaylee by the hotel pool. That proves to be a little much, so he meets with Hector and agrees to say that the gun from the confrontation with Tuco was his after a ballsy negotiation of a $50,000 fee. Nacho comes by to give him the money and in a nice character moment for Mike, he returns $25,000 to Nacho in recognition that Tuco is soon going to be released. The nod Nacho gives in reply is telling -- there's a deepening mutual respect between the two.

Finally, we come to the Kim storyline.  I'm no expert at courtroom speak, but Kim represents HHM at a hearing in front of a judge as she attempts to defend Sandpiper clients against bullying. She doesn't win, but her opponent's boss is impressed with her efforts and invites her to lunch to offer her a job. I found the timing of this very interesting. The job offer would have been most compelling to Kim before the events of last weeks episode in which Chuck found a way to bail Kim out of Howard's doghouse. I'm assuming it would have been easier for Kim to jump ship then, as it'd be a quick and easy way to get out of a bad situation. Now, it's a more interesting situation because Chuck has emerged as a mentor of sorts. Even though Howard's being cold to Kim, Chuck offers hope that she has a future at HHM.

Though Kim turns down the offer initially, she can't help but feel enticed by the freedom it presents. After another swindling of a rich guy with Jimmy at a bar, Jimmy has an honest talk with Kim about the opportunity and explains that it's a way for her to get what she wants, and Kim seems receptive to the idea. The closing scene, with Jimmy destroying that damn too-small cupholder in his corporate car, is pretty telling about the near-term future of Jimmy McGill. But what will Kim do?

Bullet Points

• Howard goes from completely and stonefacedly (that's a word, as of now) ignoring Kim on a long walk to the conference room to upbeat and animated upon seeing their Mesa clients. Another fine moment in the life of CorpLawBot v2.6 Beta.

• "We were just supposed to scare you." Mike: "Well try harder next time."

• The elephant in the room -- Nacho is not a character on Breaking Bad and he's clearly willing to cross Tuco Salamanca. Do his days feel numbered to you? Ahhhh the trouble with prequels.....

• Look, Kim Wexler is cool and all, but she's wearing a Kansas City Royals shirt (in New Mexico, even!). Go fuck yourself, Kim Wexler.

• No Chuck this week. A true crime!

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Five: "Rebecca"

I said it last week and I'll say it again. This show knows how to deliver an opening scene. And once again, the cold open is the best part of the episode.

In a flashback, we're introduced to Rebecca, a woman with whom Chuck is romantically involved. Jimmy comes over for dinner and is meeting Rebecca for the first time. Despite Chuck's warning to Rebecca that Jimmy is coarse and unrefined, Jimmy is cordial and charming throughout most of the dinner. It's around the time Jimmy started at HHM and Jimmy begins to talk about his experiences in the mail room. He talks through most of the scene, but per usual, Chuck is what makes the scene interesting. 

Chuck seems genuinely proud of his brother when Jimmy talks about how he's coming along in the mail room and adjusting to his new job. However, once there's a prolonged silence at the dinner, Jimmy starts telling lawyer jokes that he's heard through the grapevine. Because the show has drawn Chuck so well to this point, we know exactly how he's going to react to the idea of Jimmy making jokes (harmless jokes, but jokes nonetheless) about his profession. A series of forced smiles and frustrated scowls washes across Chuck's face while Jimmy puts on his show and then the knife gets twisted when Rebecca delivers another zinger and joins in on the act. He's unable to absorb even the slightest of mockeries of what he does for a living, and he's doubly frustrated that his brother can win over people so easily when he quite obviously doesn't have the personality to do the same. One gets the sense that Chuck feels that interpersonal relations involve meticulous hard work and that instant connections with people is yet another one of Jimmy's "shortcuts" that he despises.

Anyway, now Jimmy apparently has a babysitter for him at the office, a girl by the name of Erin. The first encounter the two have is pretty symbolic of everything that there is to come. Jimmy put a soda can in the recycling bin in his office, which ::gasp:: is for paper only. Good thing Erin was there to notice it, rescue it, and point it out to Jimmy basically as the first thing she says to him. She then drops a 3,000 pound sack of "annoying" on Jimmy as she describes a laundry list of edits and minor problems with documents he prepared, even though Jimmy technically outranks her. Woof.

Though Jimmy gets his fair share of screen time, this episode is mostly the Kim Wexler show. She's still in Howard Hamlin's doghouse and she's desperately trying to work her way out of it. Jimmy shows up with the quintessentially Jimmy solution of suing HHM, which Kim quickly dismisses. Jimmy still thinks that Chuck is behind this mess, but thanks to that subtle moment in the previous episode, we know that this is Howard's beef, even if we don't fully get why.

Kim's next step is to lay out a bunch of post-it notes with a bunch of old connections as she reaches for whatever strings she can pull to bring in new business for HHM. She paces across parking lots, stairwells, and empty conference rooms only to receive countless rejections in montage format across two different musically-enhanced scenes. One could criticize Better Call Saul for dragging out these scenes, but it's really the only way to properly capture the frustration Kim's going through, which is necessary for the payoff. She gets a call back from Paige, an acquaintance from Mesa Bank, that finally leads to a meeting. Kim's shriek of pure jubilation in the parking lot is a truly triumphant moment.

Unfortunately, that moment of happiness is very short-lived. Howard and Kim meet with Paige and another rep from Mesa and it's very obviously a success. After the meeting, the two congratulate each other on a job well-done, but there's an obvious coldness to Howard, who doesn't even attempt to make eye contact with Kim until he walks away. Kim asks Howard if she should begin considering a list of associates to put on the client, but then Howard delivers the most painful line of the season so far.

"I'll put Francis on that. You've got enough on your plate in doc review."

Ouch.

Howard and Chuck meet at Chuck's place to discuss the new business and the details are fleshed out further. Howard credits Kim for the score and Chuck asks whether Kim's out of the doghouse, to which Howard replies with a flat, "We'll see." The guy can't even be straight to his partner about what he's done.

In response to what he's heard, Chuck tracks down Kim at the office and has some coffee with her. Chuck reminisces about his dad, for whom he has a great deal of admiration. As it turns out, according to Chuck, Jimmy stole $14,000 from his dad's store, which led to the score going under. As Chuck explains it, Jimmy's not a bad person, but he can't help himself from being who he is. He leaves the room telling Kim that he'll talk to Howard to see if he can get Kim out of her current situation and congratulates her on the new client. It's a clear attempt to become a mentor of sorts for Kim, but probably more important to Chuck is finally being able to win over someone Jimmy loves, similar to what Jimmy did to Rebecca in the cold open.

Bulllet Points

• I'm convinced now -- Chuck is the best character on the show. 

• Chuck's attempt at lawyer humor falls flat with Rebecca: "What do you call 25 attorneys buried up to their necks in cement? Not enough cement!"  Jimmy could have delivered that well. When Chuck says it, it just sounds dark and creepy.

• I was dying when Jimmy was telling the story of when he started at HHM and he licked all those envelopes before realizing that there was a sponge for that. On one of my first days ever on my first job out of college, I was asked by a guy a year ahead of me who was showing me the ropes to mail out approximately 100 benefit statements to pension plan participants. I trucked on through the painstakingly slow process of licking all the envelopes to seal them up, and when I was nearly finished, the guy who asked me to mail them came by my desk and asked me what the hell I was doing. He pointed out that there's an envelope sealer in the production room and that he only wanted me to take the envelopes there and have the production team handle it. I never got out from under that story as long as I worked there. Long story short, I feel your pain, Jimmy.

• Ugh, Kim calling all these old acquaintances is pretty much my worst nightmare. Not only is small talk entirely dreadful, but the idea of being all-too-aware that you're going into the exchange needing the other person to do something for you while having little recent friendship capital to lean on? Awful. It's the equivalent of the situation faced by all those people you vaguely knew who took commission-based financial product sales jobs in their 20s and called everyone they knew to "make a connection" or "set up a meeting" to discuss products to sell. The person on the other end of the line now needs to find a way to say "no" in the least disappointing way possible, and you're the asshole who put them in that awkward spot.
• "You don't save me. I save me." You go, Kim Wexler.

• Helloooooooo Hector Salamanca! I miss your bell. Maybe up your bribe from $5,000 next time.

Better Call Saul, Season Two, Episode Four: Gloves Off

The neverending rage of Tuco Salamanca......

Vince Gilligan is an artistic master of the cold open. We see Mike walking through a dark house, drop an envelope of money on the table and head on over to the fridge to get a beer. He puts a bag of frozen vegetables on half of his face, which the camera hides from view. Eventually we get to see just how badly he got messed up and it's not pretty.  It's an easy conclusion that he wound up taking the job from Nacho that was referenced at the end of the last episode, but what we don't know is that this is a sort of "flash-forward" scene for what's to come in "Gloves Off".

Meanwhile, Jimmy's getting reprimanded for his commercial by his bosses. I understand why they'd be mad because he went behind his back, but the reason that Cliff provides puzzles me.  He says that the commercial is damaging to the reputation of the firm and I genuinely don't understand how.  It was aired one time during a TV show watched by mostly elderly folks. Maybe he's warning against future decision-making in the same vein which could have worse reputational consequences, but I really didn't get this explanation.

Further confusing is the punishment that Kim receives for not bringing the commercial to Howard Hamlin's attention. Jimmy very logically argues that she shouldn't be getting punished for something he did at another firm. Plus, she didn't even know that Davis & Main didn't approve the commercial, so there was no reason for her to believe there was any wrongdoing.  Another very puzzling scene.

Jimmy confronts Chuck about Kim's predicament and Chuck denies involvement. This actually lines up with what we see when Kim departs the conference room with Chuck and Howard, as Chuck asks Howard, "What do you plan to do?" It's an interesting touch because we've expected Chuck to play the villain at this point and it lets the viewer know that this decision is likely in Howard's court. Jimmy tries to convince Chuck to do something about it by proposing quitting the law in exchange for bailing out Kim, and Chuck correctly points out that this would be extortion and a felony. Chuck may not treat Jimmy with the love a brother should have, but it's clear from this scene that he hasn't acted the way he has just to be a dick. He's got too much respect for the law to either be okay with Jimmy practicing it or making a Jimmy-like deal to stop Jimmy from doing that ever again. Mike and Jimmy are obviously the two best-drawn characters on the show, but Chuck is giving them a run for their money.

Meanwhile, Nacho explains that the "job" he has for Mike is for him to kill his partner, Tuco, because he's a total nutjob, why else? Nacho's elaborate plan seems too leaky for Mike, so Mike suggests sniping Tuco from a distance after he exits a meeting. He goes to procure a gun from a private arms dealer, but when he doesn't find anything to his liking, he seemingly changes his mind on the spot about his plan for Tuco.

Mike explains to Nacho that killing Tuco would compound the problem, not solve it and that getting him arrested would be a much better course of action. The explanation he gives is that Tuco's family would ultimately figure out what happened and come back on Nacho. What remains confusing to me is why Mike needed to see the arms dealer to figure this out. Any thoughts?

The plan Mike hatches is brilliant and well-considered, but absolutely painful. He provokes Tuco into beating the shit out of him in front of the cops, but to do so he needs to bank on Tuco acting predictably (not so tough) and getting the cops to show up at the absolutely perfect moment (pretty tough). Everything Mike pulls works to great effect, from wiping hand prints off of the payphone to flashing his cash as he purchases chicken from the diner to the final "that's all you got" that really earns him some facial damage. Nacho asks him after the incident why he went through so much trouble and monetary sacrifice to avoid pulling the trigger. Why indeed?  Perhaps the answer lies in something Mike said to Tuco, referring at the time to trying to go through insurance to resolve a car accident. "I offered to do this the right way. If you can't accept that, I can't help you."

Bullet Points

• Mike drinks PBR. Mike is the fucking man.

• Another nice touch from the cold open -- Mike is holding the boxing gloves that Tuco wore around his neck as a souvenir from the fight.

• The opening credits show a shot of cell phones in a drawer, which is a reference to the protocol people use before getting in a room with Chuck. I haven't really paid that much attention to these but have they always been this plot-related? They've seen kind of random to me in the past.

• We are still breaking up Mike and Jimmy storylines week by week. When's everything going to connect?

• Hmmm...I wonder just what Jimmy's going to do with that second chance of his?

The Pat Hatter Buys a Microwave

(This week's recap of Better Call Saul will be delayed; I watch it with my wife and she's been working late this week, so we haven't gotten around to it)

The other day, my wife was trying to heat up some butter for garlic bread in the microwave. The microwave began to make an odd sound and there was even some weird smoke-like gas (possibly smoke) emanating from the machine. She stopped it immediately and became resigned to the fact that the microwave was probably cooked (heh).

While my wife may have skipped straight to Acceptance, I don't grieve over broken things in quite that fashion. I enjoy the Denial stage and spend a disproportionately large amount of time in the Anger stage. Usually I replace Bargaining and Depression with Have-A-Beer-And-Forget-About-It, but unfortunately this is still Lent. Point is, I approached the microwave again for some reason and tried once more to heat up the butter. Surely that was a one-off electrical error that wouldn't repeat itself, and hey look! It started up fine again!

::microwave flickers and pops angrily, cut to scene of entire town losing power and blacking out::

Oh.

When you have a 1-year old and are in a situation where both parents work, a microwave is simply not something you can do without. It is the reheater of easy leftovers, the cooker of frozen vegetables, the source of at least part of damn near every meal for my daughter. The microwave is a holy, sacred appliance that makes life do-able.

"I didn't have enough respect for that power and it's out now." ~ Ellie Sattler, Jurassic Park

I had a naive and simple plan on Monday evening. I would pick up my daughter from day care around 5:00, take her to Home Depot to purchase a microwave, get the microwave up and running in time to heat her up some food, and still wind up putting her to bed at a reasonable time.  It is remarkable just how perfectly every step of that would have had to work out for it to be anything resembling a success, but I convinced myself that things would go in accordance with this schedule.

I am a stupid person.

I picked up my daughter and we made the drive to Home Depot. At this time I realized that I had done little research on the matter in advance. Because I am a millenial and had an upcoming problem involving a physical object, I did what people of this generation usually do and called my parents for advice.  My mom answered and I was relieved to learn that microwaves are simple machines with few complications or necessary specifications. She did, however, remind me that I needed to measure the nook that our microwave sits in before buying one. Shit. I was meaning to do that all day and forgot. I took a detour and headed home to get the measurements: 2 feet wide, 17 inches high, and about 2 feet deep.

When I got to Home Depot, I made haste for the appliance section, understanding my daughter's general level of patience for sitting in a shopping cart for an extended period of time. I looked at the microwaves on display in the appliance section that were hanging above the stoves.  What the hell? These things are all humongous!

Eventually I got to talk to someone that explained that the microwaves on display were "over-the-range" microwaves and that the countertop models were smaller.  Well great, guy! Show me some of those! He takes me over to some sitting on shelves, and I explain the dimensions of the space to him. He tells me that all of the ones on display here should be fine, and sure enough, a tape measure confirmed that. I obviously have no clue what to buy besides wanting stainless steel for the look. There's this one Magic Chef microwave that seemed pretty cheap and another LG microwave that had a better look to it, but was about $50 more expensive.

This is where the power of branding comes into play. I have no history with purchasing products from LG. They might make great products with excellent customer service, or they might make crap that breaks down immediately and outsource their customer service to Comcast. What I do know is that "LG" is the name of a company I've heard of before and "Magic Chef" is most likely a company run out of a basement somewhere that sells its goods on infomercials at three o'clock in the morning, because it is called "Magic Chef". I took pictures of both microwaves and sent them to my wife, but she didn't respond so I just picked the LG one and moved on.

At the checkout register, they rang up the microwave for a price of $179.99. I was about to put in my chip card but I stopped and recalled that this was far in excess of the price on the tag back in the appliance section. I mentioned to the checker that I recalled it being priced closer to $150.  We tracked down the guy that was helping me make the decision and he went to investigate the situation.

Meanwhile, my daughter had been a little antsy during this trip, but no worse than that. Overall, she had been great, and now I had a little down time to play with her a little bit and get her smiling and laughing. The checker was absolutely loving this, and she joined in on the fun. She would tilt her head to the side and my daughter would do the same in reaction while cracking up like it was the funniest game in the world. Eventually, enough time had passed for her to determine that her co-worker had probably reached the Iowa state border by now and would not be returning. She told me that he was "probably going to honor it anyway", so she rang it up for $149.00 because I told her that I thought it was close to $150 but couldn't remember with 100% certainty.  This was a nice gesture.

I then went to the car to text my wife that I had finished the errand. It was at that point that I noticed the picture of the microwave I sent to her earlier. The price tag was in the picture and it was $159.00.

Oh no.

In the grand scheme of things, this was pretty much not a big deal given that I basically told them what price I wanted to be charged and they gave it to me without even checking things out. I thought momentarily about driving away, but I then thought about my Catholic guilt screaming "YOU STOLE $10.00 FROM HOME DEPOT YOU ASSHOLE!!!" at me the rest of the evening.  I walked back in with my daughter and explained to the checker what happened, basically asking her to put $10.00 more on my card.  She said she could not do that and that I would have to take the receipt to the "Returns" line on the other side of the Home Depot.

Okay then.

I head down there and there's one dude in line in front of me. Whatever he's working through with the person behind the counter is taking forever, and I keep making eye contact with the returns person to see if she could squeeze me in during some down time, but to no avail. Meanwhile, my daughter is again the star of the show, smiling and charming everyone waiting around the counter.  This could have been an awful errand and she was making it somehow fun. Eventually, the guy left. I began to explain to the customer service lady what had happened and she said "oh, they called and told me about you. You're good." Neat. You couldn't have just said that to me ten minutes ago?

Finally I take the thing home.  It's 6:45 PM already so all hopes of my daughter getting to bed anywhere close to her 7:15 - 7:30 bedtime are pretty much out the window. Hopefully, though, I could plug in the microwave and get her something hot to eat. When I took it out of the box, it measured at about 21.5 inches wide, so it should fit within the 24-inch wide front of the nook with some wiggle room. Then, I started reading the manual regarding installation. Everything was going swimmingly until I read...

Free air flow around the oven is important. Allow at least 4 inches of space at the top, sides, and back of the oven for proper ventilation.

You have got to be kidding me.

Four inches on each side?

After all that, I don't even have space for this thing??

I immediately called Home Depot back, irate at the fact that the person helping me to pick out a microwave did not care to mention anything about ventilation constraints, while simultaneously stressed that I still was making no progress in getting my progressively impatient 1-year-old any closer to fed, bathed, and put to bed. The kitchen department gave me a response roughly akin to, "Our department employees don't know anything about microwaves." Super!

A part of me began to hope that the four inches thing was just a boilerplate overly conservative instruction put in the manual to cover the manufacturer's ass. I pushed further with the kitchen department and I was transferred to some sort of interior designer over the phone (please do not ask me how the internal phone tree of Home Depot works). I asked this new person whether the instruction was merely a sick joke and she replied that in her capacity as an interior designer that she takes that specific four-inch ventilation specification very seriously when assisting clients with the layout of appliances in the kitchen. At this point, I was losing my mind and having already explained the situation with my daughter to her, pretty much all sense of personal decency had vacated me.

"HOW ARE THE STORE EMPLOYEES NOT EDUCATED ABOUT NECESSARY AIR FLOW REQUIREMENTS OF MICROWAVES WHEN THEY ARE PHYSICALLY THE PEOPLE IN THE STORE TELLING YOU WHAT TO BUY!?!??!?!?!?!!!!11!1!1!!!1!!!"

(I was so out of my mind that I may have actually spoken the "1"s.)

I was told that a store manager would call me back later. In the meantime, my mother-in-law came over and looked at the situation as well. While 24-inches was the clearance for the nook, past the front the width was more like 25.5 inches, so we actually had about two inches of air flow space on each side, half the ventilation requirements shown in the manual. Our family works with a contractor we trust, so she called this gentleman and his point of view was that two inches on each side should be perfectly adequate. Finally having some level of assurance that I'd purchased a product that could actually be used without overheating, I began to breathe a sigh of relief.

All that's left to do is plug the thing in.

The outlet where the plug needs to go is actually behind a drawer below the nook. As this area is otherwise inaccessible, the previous owners drilled a hole into the bottom of the nook so that the plug for the old microwave could pass through it. We tried to pass the new plug through the hole and ran into a little bit of a problem:

OLD PLUG STYLE: STRAIGHT

NEW PLUG STYLE: BENDY-SIDEWAYS-LIKE

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