Simplify Media is an application that streams your home music library to remote computers and mobile devices. If you use a program like iTunes, the ability to stream your music library to other computers is already built-in (well, mostly), so, you know big deal. What really drew me to Simplify Media was the promise that I could stream my home music library to my iPhone. This is cool for a number of reasons. First, if you have a lot of music in your library, you may not be to fit it all on your iPhone. Simplify Media solves this problem by streaming content. Second, look - it’s just neat - and you either get that or you don’t.

The first version, some months old, required you to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch. It also only worked over WiFi. It was also kind of lame and prone to not work. However, an “official” version of Simplify Media showed up on the iPhone App Store the other day. I gave it a try and was pleasantly surprised. Not only does it actually work, but it’s no longer limited to WiFi. I am happy to report that Simplify Media now works over your EDGE/3G data connection. I haven’t had opportunity to test EDGE performance, and I never, never, never want to - but I did take my iPhone out with me while I went jogging the other day, and streaming content worked flawlessly over 3G after five or six seconds of initial buffering, and that’s kind of awesome. AT&T will probably cut off one of my thumbs or something, but hey, go technology!

So this altered my fragile reality a little bit today.

You know that movie The Longshots? It’s entirely possible and probable that you do not. If, as I suspect, that is the case, I implore you to watch the trailer. If you watch it, It will make what’s coming approximately a billion times more insane. If you are too lazy to watch a two minute movie trailer, I will briefly provide the salient details: It is “the true story of Jasmine Plummer who, at the age of eleven, became the first female to play in Pop Warner football tournament in its 56-year history.” It’s a rollicking feel good family film starring Ice Cube. Unfortunately, Mr. Cube plays the role of irascible uncle with a heart of gold, and not action quarterback Jasmine Plummer. That would’ve been a hell of a movie.

Anyway, that’s all well and good and predictable, but get this - and please, sit down and make sure your mouth isn’t full - TL (as it’s known in the industry) is helmed by Fred Durst. Yes, that Fred Durst. Yes, used to front nu metal suckfest Limp Bizkit and maybe had sex with Britney Spears and then had a sex tape leaked onto the net Fred Durst. By the way, because I’m a pervert, I totally watched that video when it came out. Imagine how bad a sex tape involving Fred Durst could possibly be, and I assure you, it was worse than that. As an added bonus, now whenever I see the trailer for The Longshots all I can hear is Fred Durst commanding a subservient blond to touch his balls. Yeah.

And if that weren’t enough, The Longshots isn’t even Fred’s directorial debut. That would be The Education of Charlie Banks, which was obviously awful because it was directed by Fred Durst. Wait. What’s that, you say? The Education of Charlie Banks premiered at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival to universal acclaim? Seriously? It’s like I fell asleep and woke up in a bizarro world where everything is fucking crazy.

I don’t know. I don’t know if this is bad or good or anything at all. He’s a guy making his way, just like everybody else. I just know it feels strange and unnatural and confusing to me, like when Obi-Wan Kenobi felt the destruction Alderaan.

There’s something unsettling afoot.

One of my prouder moments finds me sitting in the corner of my local Big Boy, openly sobbing over my fish and chips while I soldier through the end of Cormac McCarthy’s incredible novel The Road. When my waitress comes by to see if I need anything else, I mumble, “No, no thank you,” and she moves on briskly, made uncomfortable, I would guess, by the guy sitting in the corner eating fish and weeping.  I watch her go and I turn another page - but what I really want to do is to run after her, to hug her, to shove my face into her heaving, tattooed bosom and feel her warmth, to feel something - because The Road is a long, dark journey into, frankly, some seriously fucked up shit.  It’s a beautiful, powerful, moving journey, but it’s also a journey that, undertaken at the wrong time (say, in a corner booth at a Big Boy, alone, at night), can leave you empty and yearning for nothing more than a human connection - any human connection.

For those of you not big on “reading” and “words”, you will be pleased to learn that the heartrending experience of The Road will soon be available in movie form.  The idea being, I guess, that human tears can only make popcorn more delicious.  I was browsing io9 today and saw that the first set of production stills from the film, which stars Viggo Mortensen, have been released.  Judging by the the oppressive sheen of dead that seems to coat them, I’d say they’ve done a pretty good job of capturing the grim finality of the book.

Now excuse me while I crawl under my desk and cry.

I’ve always enjoyed baseball in a detached, romantic sort of way. I like the idea of baseball. I like watching movies like The Natural. At the end of The Rookie, when Dennis Quaid gets called out onto the field, I cry like a little girl. I appreciate the game - the tradition, the rivalries, the struggles - as a bona-fide piece of Americana.

Tragically, though, as a game, baseball has always been lost on me. I want to like it. I mean, I like it in concept, so I’m already half-way there, right? But seriously - have you ever tried to actually watch a game of baseball? I don’t mean a movie that has baseball in it, like Bull Durham, but an actual game of baseball. This is boring stuff! A guy tries to hit a ball. People stand around. Someone in the dugout makes a joke and the guy next to him laughs. If you could hear the joke, that would be something, but you can’t. Occasionally, something happens, and everyone will run around for a couple seconds. They stand around some more. This continues. Also, it turns out that it doesn’t matter whether you witness this spectacle in person, or on the couch while playing World of Warcraft. Yes, baseball is boring and impenetrable in either place. The only difference is that when you’re at the ballpark, the seats are made of hard plastic and are overly small, making it an even more unpleasant experience.

This used to be America’s past-time? Really? At least in Nascar there are crashes sometimes, and those crashes entertain me by way of the hilarious sport blooper reels they inevitably comprise.

Except, then, something happened to me.

About a month ago, I was flipping channels when I stumbled on Detroit Tigers game. Normally, I would have proceeded up the dial, in search of an episode of Law and Order. Instead, my finger faltered and then, suddenly, failed.

In my head, something clicked.

I don’t know. Maybe most men are genetically predisposed to like a game where people hit things with sticks. Maybe it’s like being a Cylon or a member of the X-Men - a chip, a latent genetic marker - one day it just turns on, and then it doesn’t turn off. Or, maybe in the absence of any other sport, save the WNBA, I simply adapted my sports addiction to another fix.

I don’t know that it matters. What does matter is that something profound happened to me. I suddenly found myself totally and completely engaged. I watched for an inning. I watched for two. I watched the whole game. Then, I watched the series.

One night Nicki walked into the living room and eyed the TV.

“So now it’s baseball?” she said. “Jesus.”

I started to watch the schedule, to follow the race for the pennant in the AL. I started to learn the rules, the jargon, the strategy. I started to appreciate the skill in a 100 mph bullet fastball, a stolen base, a double play. I started paying attention to sports-talk radio.

The Detroit Tigers became my team.

Players slipped their names. Ivan Rodriguez became Pudge. Kenny Rogers became The Gambler. Dontrelle Willis became Shitty Dontrelle Willis.

It wasn’t as cool as learning I could fly or that I was a robot, but it was something.

Suddenly, I got baseball. I appreciated baseball. I loved baseball.

And, having watched baseball for a month or so now - having adopted the Detroit Tigers into the wheelhouse of feeling I reserve for puppies and rainbows and Barack Obama, I feel completely justified when I ask, what the hell?

I mean, at first it was OK. Largely, I think, because I was still enthralled with the newness of the thing - like after you saw The Phantom Menace for the first time, and you all stood around in the parking lot and talked about your favorite parts. After watching the Tigers get swept by the Rays this weekend, the curtain was pulled back and a truth was revealed: this shit is fucking ridiculous.

And where to begin?

The illustrious Tigers, who are now seven games back from first place and a game under .500, seem to be hitting - I mean, sort of, I guess. After all, everything’s relative. Compared with their pitching, Tiger batters seem to be wielding toothpick splinters from the very World Tree, infused with the magic of the Old Gods. That is to say, their pitching is really, really, really bad.

Let’s see if we can peg the Sarcasm Meter here for a second. I mean, I’m glad to see we got rid of Hall of Famer Pudge Rodriguez for bullpen relief from Kyle Farnsworth. He only gave up three runs - including two home runs - in his one inning of work in yesterday’s 6 to 5 loss to the Rays. Also, stellar, fantastic, absolutely top notch work from new closer Fernando Rodney, who has blown four of his five save chances. He not only managed to hit Shawn Riggans square in the chest with a 95 mile an hour fastball, possibly clinically killing him for several seconds, but he also walked three - including, and this is great - the winning run!

Sometimes, to fit in, I will lie, and say things like, “Boy, when he made that catch for a touchdown, I was really hollering at the TV!” This is not the truth. I’ve never really been one to yell at the TV during sports. I am a tense, pensive type, and while watching sports I tend to alternate between states of brooding and cautious optimism. On Sunday afternoon, watching the Detroit Tigers implode, I actually began shaking my fists at the TV while screaming, “Fernando Rodney, I will eat your children!”

But, hey, have no fear! Nate Robertson is pitching tomorrow against the White Sox. What’s that, you say? He’s got an ERA over 6 and a 6-8 record? Fantastic! Incredible!

This, sports fans, is vitriol that can only be sparked when a first love turns cold, when an innocence is corrupted. A switch flipped on a Tuesday in July, and I’m a Detroit Tigers fan now, for better or worse.

It’s looking a lot like worse.