Past my peak

Among baseball geeks, there's a school of thought (formed, basically, by exaggerating the importance of and grossly misapplying a real statistical trend) that essentially holds that age 27 is the ideal, peak-performance year for a ballplayer. It's been inflated by some to the point where a player's "age-27 season" has kind of a mystical, magical quality to it.

On the other hand, another, more realistic group says that a player's "peak years" run right up through age 32. So I've got five good years left in me.

I'm not thrilled to be spending my birthday in Libel Show rehearsals until 10:00 p.m., but there are worse things. I mean, I'm sure there are going to be people at the school at that time that will be, like, studying and stuff. No one I know (or care to), but people.

When I said away back in February that I'd be bringing you stuff from other places that I find funny, I never would have guessed that the very second one I brought to you would be a stand-up comedienne, or, even less likely, a ventriloquist, but I find this woman kind of awkwardly hilarious (it's a bit raunchy, but just a bit):



Her name (as it may say in that clip) is Nina Conti. We watched For Your Consideration two nights ago, and while it had its moments, I found it really disappointingly lazy for a Christopher Guest film (basically Waiting for Guffman goes Hollywood and loses most of its wit and charm on the way). But Conti (with her monkey) plays a weather woman on the local a.m. news program, and there's a lengthy clip of her doing her material in the bonus features, and I think the DVD is worth a look just for her. Cute and funny. And really a very talented ventriloquist, for whatever that's worth.

Off to continue "enjoying" my "birthday."