For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;

a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

THE TIME HAS COME

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PUT ME IN COACH – 12

It is that magical time of the year again when peanuts and crackerjacks are vogue. The fans of the worst teams convince themselves they won’t lose 90 games this year, and they look good on someone’s paper. Thus, it is time for the most anticipated entry this blog offers; the 12th annual Code Monkey’s MLB Team Predictions and Slogans.

As normal, the predictions will probably be wrong, but they are here just in case I get one right so I can brag about it. The slogans are more in-line with what I think the team’s slogans should be if the teams were actually truthful with their slogans.

AL EAST
1. Toronto Player’s flipping bats and fan’s throwing stuff on the field is all part of our Canadian politeness
2. Evil Empire Reforming our ways with zero free agents this past off-season because we misplaced the checkbook
3. Tampa Bay Playing in Havana made us appreciate the Tropicana
4. Evil Nation Someone needs to check if Panda is on the endangered third basemen list
5. Baltimore Banning our biggest threat – pies
AL CENTRAL
1. Kansas City It’s fine to hustle in the late innings and jump onto our band wagon
2. Minnesota Minnie and Paul are looking forward to Twins Fur Bomber Hat Giveaway night
3. Chicago WS Believing in strict child labor laws
4. Detroit Bad bullpen and bad base running will not help us in this division
5. Cleveland Let the Lindor hype begin
AL WEST
1. Houston That’s right, contenders and Astros are now in the same sentence
2. Seattle DiPoto overhaul leads to dividends
3. Texas To honor Josh Hamilton, we will rename our DL the Hamilton List
4. LA of Anaheim Trout would win the MVP if we could get to the playoffs
5. Oakland Ready to trade Sonny Gray for a big haul
NL EAST
1. NY Mets Paying 10 times less in revenue sharing than the other team in our city, but we went to the World Series last year and they did not
2. Washington Harper vs Papelbon 2 is a tiring, clownish event
3. Miami Mattingly will be enforcing the Mr. Burn’s rule – “Shave those sideburns…you heard me hippie”
4. Atlanta Frankly, Starlet, Turner Field is ancient 19 year old stadium so time to move on
5. Philadelphia Upping fan’s cholesterol with Duck Fat Fries and Hickory Bacon Hot-Dogs
NL CENTRAL
1. St. Louis We have heard that “The Year of the Cubs” stuff for over 108 years
2. Pittsburgh Fighting for Wild Card Reform one season at a time
3. Chicago Cubs The bigger the build up, the bigger goat’s bah
4. Milwaukee It is going to be a long season when you lose a closer while he is taking off his shoes
5. Cincinnati We got a $19 million bonus pool for being really bad or as we look it, we won
NL WEST
1. LA Dodgers Can’t believe this is Vin Scully’s farewell season
2. San Francisco Hunter Pence Likes Even Number Years
3. San Diego Don’t forget we still have all those big contracts we paid for last year
4. Arizona Beating the drum that our 18 years-old stadium needs to be replaced – blah, blah, hiss, hiss
5. Colorado What is this pitching thing everyone keeps saying we need?
SLOGANS FOR MLB:
Actually going to ban smokeless tobacco in some places
OTHER PREDICTIONS:
First manager to get fired: Mike Scioscia (LA of Anaheim)
WILDCARD PREDICTIONS:
AL #1 Seattle
AL #2 Minnesota
NL #1 Pittsburgh
NL #2 San Francisco
WILDCARD PLAYOFF WINNERS:
AL Minnesota
NL Pittsburgh
DIVISIONAL SERIES PLAYOFF WINNERS:
AL #1 Kansas City over Minnesota
AL #2 Houston over Toronto
NL #1 Pittsburgh over LA Dodgers
NL #2 St. Louis over NY Mets
CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES PLAYOFF WINNERS:
AL Houston over Kansas City
NL St. Louis over Pittsburgh
WORLD SERIES WINNER:
St. Louis over Houston

STATS:
In case you are worried I might make a correct predictions and your team has no hope, don’t be afraid. Below are my stats from the previous years. That should ease your fears and prove that I am no prophet.

Correct AL Division Winners 13/33 39%
Correct AL Wild Card Winners 2/15 13%
Correct NL Division Winners 15/33 45%
Correct NL Wild Card Winners 3/15 20%
Correct First Manager To Fired (got my first one right last year) 1/11 09%
Correct World Series Winners 1/6 17%

There you have it, my skewed and unscientific view of the 2016 major league season. Enjoy the day and season, baseball fans. Go Rockies!

ALL MY FRIENDS SAY

At the end of each year, I like to honor my friends/people I know that have blogs by linking back to my favorite story that they wrote this past year. It is just a way to support my friends and let them know I enjoy their work.

I hope you take the time to click on the links and read about their lives and their thoughts.

BLOG LINK COMMENT
The Adventures of Mollie What an ugly word.
Bob The Runner Bob’s first time on the podium. Congratulations Bob!
Danica Favorite Ten things that make you awesome.
Dave & Amy Terpstra “I love to throw stuff away.” This was the first line of the entry and it really got my attention.
Field Notes On The Jesus Way Finish Strong, words I tell myself all the time.
Fraser Hess Blog Techie blog with some wise real world words: “sick of this macho, don’t-show-any-weakness nonsense from”
Grace and Truth “To be more clear don’t demand that you should be allowed to steal from other people because you made a dumb decision”
Grace in the Story Shine
Hammi: Bacon-Fueled Fitness This was the last entry before motherhood took over for her.
Hugs Across The Miles Asking for help can be hard but so needed and useful.
I Get It Chiropratic Some health benefits of fasting.
I’m Julia’s Mom This is such a great blog making it so hard to choice a favorite one. I picked this one because it was about more of the this wonderful family.
J.D. Dudycha (The Penitent Man) Great blog from a good friend. It has lots of different entries. This one is about publishing his book.
Melissa Cheatham Finishing life as an intern.
My Random Thoughts Dangerous life of those people.
Oh the Places You’ll Go! Yep, real leaders go first.
One More River When you play at Goatfest, I think you have made it to the big time.
Shalag As someone who likes to eat, I like to have a list of feasts.
She’s an American Girl And she is off.
Way of Running Loved the way he described Winter running, “guts to do what it takes and the craziness to endure”.
Win, Lose, & Drew It should be this way every playoffs. I would have included the Dodgers, too.

Happy New Year! May you new year be much better than the previous!

MIGHT WIN AN OSCAR

It is a tradition of this blog near the end of each year to rank the movies that came out during the year (2015) and that I saw in the year (2015). These are just my thoughts about the movies. If it is different than yours, that is OK. We can have different opinions, really.

Why do I put this list out? Well, no reason really other than I just want to. It is just a yearly feature of Admirable Thoughts: Writings of Code Monkey.

I would like to thank the Local Public Libraries where I checked out all but four of these movies. Without the library, I probably would not have wasted hours watching movies because I don’t want to spend the money on them.

RANK MOVIE THOUGHTS
1 Avengers: Age of Ultron I find good Super Hero movies a lot of fun
2 McFarland, USA Based on a true story I can’t believe I did not know about
3 Star Wars The Force Awakens Very enjoyable but nothing about the plot surprised me
4 The Secret Handshake Not best movie ever made, but it was funny and does deal with a great question “How do you teach a boy to be a man?”.
5 War Room Actress Karen Abercrombie kind of stole the show, she did a good job
6 Max A classic family-friendly, dog movie, good acting, but with an average plot
7 Interstellar I was surprised how much I liked this movie
8 Mr. Holmes An interesting take on an aging Sherlock Holmes
9 Jurassic World At least the kids did not reboot an UNIX server in seconds like in the first one
10 Ant-Man Not Marvel’s best effort for sure
11 Terminator Genisys Time travel lets you do lots of different things
12 Insurgent Mediocre at best
13 Into The Woods This one disappointed me
14 Furious 7 Not feeling this Furious movie like I have with some of the other ones
15 Mad Max. Fury Road Can’t believe how many people loves this movie
16 Creed Sly was by far the best actor in this movie
17 Fantastic Four Much worst than people said it was