Sweet Alma Lemons

Back?

2007-06-07T09:01:00.001-04:00

Here again, maybe more permanently. We'll see.

This post is for Colleen

2006-09-12T16:56:00.000-04:00

We'll chalk it up to the baseball season, boys and girls, because I Live For This.

I'm not sure how many of my 3 readers follow the Rays, but what you're thinking is probably right: We're not very good at baseball. We're actually downright bad. This is how bad it is: We're the 3rd-worst team in the game, yet this year is being dubbed a success. If for no other reason than we have a Ray Team, which should still be called The Fundamentals, and they could do a cover of a Divnyls song, because the name's sorta close, as the last 2 letters are the same. Although they're not musicians. They're mostly dancers and gymnasts. And teachers.

Thankfully, zooming your lens out a bit, you can see something like the 2006 Detroit Tigers. It's a bit of a stretch, but we've got a great load of talent...we just need to utilize it properly. Add a veteran here and there, like a Kenny Rogers and a Magglio Ordonez, and we're in business. I'd also argue for a closer examination of Joe Maddon; granted, 1 year is a bit too short of a span to judge his managerial skills, but we do have a LOT of talent that doesn't seem to be translating into wins. Under Joe Girardi, Terry Francona, or Ron Gardenhire, I think we'd be a +.500 team.

The Pluto thing: totally messes up SolarQuest. What a fine, fine board game.

File it under It's Not Interesting: Suri Cruise. Katie Holmes is meant for me, anyway.

The Illusionist: Fine, fine movie. Looking forward to The Prestige, Christopher Nolan's new film. Jon and I were discussing his pre-Memento work, and here it is: The Following.

Just finished Fooled By Randomness, a Blink/New New Thing Thinking Book that's designed to make you understand that nothing's really random. Long-lens, it all makes sense. Laws of averages, and such.

Machnacki and a Girl: This may be the new central tenet of my new novel. Which I'll start as soon as the screenplay starts. Which I'll create from the short story I write. All of this was actually in motion, and then my Western Digital RAID array crashed and I lost the story. It wasn't really bad either; I just had no ending.

Wedding thoughts: Don't get married. Just kidding. Outsource the invitations, or else you're up at 3am hating your printer and wondering how HP can get away with selling things that break so easily. And make it a party. That's what it is.

Savvy? Negative

2006-07-07T08:47:00.000-04:00

The best thing that can be said, sadly, about Dead Man's Chest is that we're closer to the final piece of the trilogy. "Lacking" might be the appropriate word here, because if there was a story hidden inside Davey Jones' tentacled-face, it stayed in there, writhing, painfully trying to be free of the bloated, overdone, effects-heavy dark movie I endured this morning.

And we didn't only lack a story. We lacked nearly everything that made the first Pirates movie so ridiculously fun: Consistent swashbuckling, ship battles, birhgt settings, and a hippity-hop pace that kept you on the leappads just long enough that you didn't sink. Orlando Bloom was hilarious in that he was too serious. And of course, Johnny Depp was nothing but surprisingly brilliant in nearly every way...from his tics to his swordfighting to his cleverness that you never quite expected.

And that's the hardest part: Jack Sparrow was missing. He wasn't even in the movie; he was rowing away in a longboat, trying to leave a film that's now a piece of a franchise. There wasn't any of those Jack I'm-going-to-outsmart-you moments that pretty much made the first movie; indeed, he even said at one point that he didn't know what he was doing.

So in his place, we get a giant sea monster that Davey Jones can apparently conjure up by turning a wheel on his ship that, you would think, someone in power would have tried to destroy by now. I love the Kraken, especially from my Final Fantasy I days, but if I had wanted to see boats decimated, I could have played Battleship. So many things didn't make sense: An absurdly lame dice game, how the cannibals even got Will in that cage, why Jones sleeps (and what he even does), and the fact that nobody noticed the chest was a bit light. I'm just saying.

The whole movie felt very Empire Strikes Back: dark, brooding, and sandwiched. We had a visit to Yoda, a lot of dark sets, and no ending. We shall have to wait until 2007 for that, apparently.

(There was a Transformers trailer. But it, too, disappointed.)

Grrrr

2006-06-21T10:44:00.000-04:00

Nice Drew Sharp piece about the Awesomely Sweet Tigers. I hope that place sells out this weekend.

It's June 21...do you know where your spring went?

2006-06-21T08:35:00.000-04:00

Happy first day o' summer.

The poor Cardinals.

The Tigers are for real.

Pretty pumped for the bro.

Why exactly is everyone so excited for Friday?

State of the Union

2006-06-18T22:35:00.000-04:00

What country gets your vote for most farked up on the planet? Seriously...another missile test? Kim Jong Il is not from this world. Then there's Iran, perhaps the most insecure nation on our blue ball. Sudan? Sierra Leone? Can we call out China for burying its people under clouds of pollution and state-run media while tantalizing them with capitalistic gold? Perhaps the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is systematically killing its people for no apparent reason? And if you're an Arab, is Israel on this list?

Rolling it up

2006-06-14T17:33:00.000-04:00

The going-ons are ridiculous and crazy, capped off by Eric's 5-day visit that ended this morning when he went back to the SassLand of Detroit to generally get on with his life. I think he enjoyed Florida, so I fully expect him to move down here soon so we can start our nightclub together. PollyEsther's Clone in full effect.

Speaking of PollyEsther's: Jon had his lovely friend Texas Girl in town for a few days (living near Austin, she is familiar with PollyEsther's), so we made sure she played Trivial Pursuit (props for getting the game-winning RBI with the last question) and had a whole meal of food at Sloppy Joe's.

Seriously, May and June have been ridiculous...I think it's partly due to Jon and his Lust For Life, and once you toss in the birthday parties, holidays (Father's Day and Mom's Birthday coming up), visits from people afar, the Pistons (a moment of silence), and the Finals (both), it just gets crazy.

I've done little-to-no wedding planning over the last 2 months either.

What I want is just a night to watch a movie or read a book...no dinner out, no facebooking, no emailing, no softball, no basketball, no Rays, no phone calls, no wedding...just me and Teddy Roosevelt's biography.

Tonight may very well be that first night in awhile. We'll see.

Love to: The bro, mint oreos, portable hard drive, Linda for her wedding, Sean the Intern, Disney, Pixar, the person who drew my Space Mountain art, Stef, Midtown for the chicken sandwiches, Mr. Auld, Crunch bars, and the DJ for the wedding.

I've been hit

2006-06-10T18:41:00.000-04:00

Ron the Tiger tagged me (ahhhhhhh), so apparently I have to do this survey. Next is Colleen; you're it.

5 Items in my fridge:
chocolate chip cookie dough I like to eat
Domino's
champagne for the wedding night
potatoes
No Ecto Cooler, sadly

5 Items in my closet
Carolina Mudcats polo shirts
12 blankets...people keep giving them to us even though we're in Florida
a Reggie Miller jersey
Holly's wedding dress
Wade Boggs bobblehead

5 Items in my car
engine
steering wheel
disposable camera, for some reason
a blanket (see "Closet" above)
Arby's coupons

5 Items in my purse
I don't have a purse, so I'll substitute my E: drive
Devil Rays animations
MP3s by The Click Five and Angels and Airwaves
Katie Holmes on SNL video
Ocean's 12 soundtrack
the last episode of BassCenter featuring Seth McClung, Josh Paul, Sarah and Becky

That's a lot of load time

2006-05-28T10:08:00.000-04:00

So,Cars. Comes out soon. John Lasseter. Directed Toy Story and A Bug's Life.

This is unbelievable:

Moving the car characters and adding realistic reflections and other details posed formidable problems. " 'Cars' was a really difficult film technically," said Ms. Anderson, the producer. "It's the most complex film we've ever made." Even with a network of processors that ran four times faster than the ones on "The Incredibles," each frame of "Cars" took an average of 17 hours to render.

17 hours? For a frame?

That would mean, at 24 frames per second (film), each second of movie would require 408 hours to render.

I can only assume they have render farms set up for this sort of thing, but seriously? 17 hours?

Of Note

2006-05-27T20:00:00.000-04:00

I can't imagine that anyone possibly cares, but I finally found a way to compile every personal email I've ever sent (using Alma's account and my yahoo account...there were flirtations with usa.net and excite, and of course there are accounts for business and commercial stuff), and some numbers:

I sent my first email ever on September 5, 1998.
Since then, I've sent 6246 personal messages, including those utilized for Almanian/WQAC/Alma library/PR office purposes.
2819 days have passed.
That's 2.22 messages/day.

Wow.

Then I get thinking: How many minutes/hours/days have I spent on IM, facebook, friendster, blogging, bulletin board posting, or just wasting time searching for winamp skins?

It's kinda scary.

What's Shakin'

2006-05-21T19:39:00.000-04:00

On your march for a World Series ring, the days meld together...a baseball game becomes another activity in a time period that doesn't run on a 24-hour cycle...there's no wake-up/work 9-5/run errands/eat dinner/watch TV and surf internet dynamic when you work in professional sports. Your cycle becomes that of the homestand and the few days preceding it you need to get ready, and you just sorta flow from one activity to the next...gameday preparation to eating to gametime to going out to getting home to sleeping to waking up to watching yesterday's Daily Show to getting ready to gameday preparation...it's actually a neat way to live, because the only thing that matters is that you're ready to go when the gates open.

That being said, May's been one crazy month.

21 days. 13 games. Andy and Chris visiting. Mother's Day. My birthday. Kelly's birthday, Stef's birthday, Jamie's birthday. Holly graduated, so I went to Richmond for that and hung out with her parents. Leah wanted to hang out. Ray Team Assemble needed constant attention. I wanted to re-read The DaVinci Code (and did on the plane ride to Richmond), slide through Wired, and watch the movies that have been for so long sitting on my shelf (Snatch and Team America). The Pistons of course got love, and now I'm getting caught up in the Tigers and the blogs about them.

And finally, finally, after being a fan for so many years, I've reached this point with baseball where I'm comfortable with it. I mean this: It's a complicated game to track, what with a team of 25 guys, only of which half, at most, will play in a day. It's different from basketball, where it's the same 8 or 9 every game, and everyone's got a defined role...you can take a player and follow him as the season progresses. It's harder with baseball, because a guy can be sent to the minors, (which until 2004, made no sense to me), which are a maze of players and potential and movement. Or guys who were once amazing can easily fizzle...if Kevin Maas stops hitting home runs, he's off the radar. Gone. In basketball, on the other hand, as Jim Jackson gets old and less effective, he transforms into that wise old veteran and role player who pops up on a nationally televised game twice a season or so. See also: Dikembe Mutombo. In short: If you don't produce in baseball, you're a ghost...I had no idea Franklyn German was a Marlin until three days ago.

Anyway, I'm now sold on that dynamic, and a player, both as an individual and a team member, makes more sense to me...I get Toby Hall's contribution to the Rays (leadership and game-calling), just as I get his individual positives (rarely strikes out). If I see on Bottomline that Paul Konerko went 3-4 with a HR and a 2B, that registers spectacularly harder than it ever has.

All right. That's very interesting, I'm sure, for everyone. Let's move on.

Do I use too many commas?

We need a new background picture on this blog. Maybe a new template. We'll see what the web has to offer.

Who are the 1/3 of the people in the country still giving our president a thumbs-up? I'm reading about Teddy Roosevelt right now, and that man would eat GDub for lunch.

Is everything on the web now designed for people with 12-second attention spans? I think this is affecting my ability to hold real conversations. AngryAlien.com has a bunch of popular movies remade, in half-a-minute, with bunnies...War of the Worlds (the original) is the best.

myspace.com is the messiest application the internet ever spit out.

Keycards for your house...sports broadcasts without announcers but with crowd noise...a giant olde english D on the building where the dolphins are outside CoPa...a device that turns your computer's heat into power...just some thoughts.

Blessed first place

2006-05-19T09:58:00.000-04:00

Oh happy day! Oh wonderful thing of sweetness! Oh bearded Zeus...how sweet you are...and by bearded Zeus, I mean Jim Leyland, because he's turned one of the laughingstocks of baseball, one of the only things I've kept with me with my whole life, one of the things that comes every spring but is a disgrace by summer, into a Beacon Of Sweetness.

Yes, the Detroit Tigers are in first place in the A.L. Central. Not only that: They have the best record in baseball. There should be a parade in Detroit today. All schools in tri-county should be closed. Everyone should play hooky, and everyone should fill that amazingly sweet stadium tonight to watch the best team in the bigs. This is a call to action. (From a blog. It will be most effective.)

What a great thing.

Today's Question

2006-05-16T09:03:00.000-04:00

Why does Nolan Ryan have a bio on the White House's website?

2.6

2006-05-10T22:29:00.000-04:00

Where'd that song Move Along come from? Steven knows I love it; his nifty little macbook spun it three times for me in the control room. That might have to be the theme song for the next 365 days, to the extent I have theme songs, which is to say never.

This birthday might be the best in a while; 25 was a game against the White Sox that, being on a Wednesday, was followed by no sort of notable celebration. 24 was in Raleigh, and since we actually did birthdays there, my lovely Mudcats surprised me with a red velvet cake that was scrumptuous. 23...hmm...Washington DC. I'd be lying if I said if I remembered exactly, but I believe it had something to do with Sarah and Chris taking me out to the Tombs. Perhaps Machnackistan can provide some insight into this; he remembers everything. 22...that awkward post-college/pre-job time period of lameness...no doubt my mother throwing me a party at home and Eric/Andy/Chris and I celebrating in Warren. Somehow. 21 was around a campfire in northern Michigan. And the usual Alma-style celebrations.

Props to whoever organized basketball today.

2006-04-28T08:51:00.000-04:00

Your solid Rays swim back into town this weekend with plans to beat the Red Tide and its Master Manny and shock the Sox out of first place while gaining some eastern ground. Gomes and Wiggy bring back some still-smokin' bats to back up Fossum the Possum, Hometown Guy Waechter and Spectacular ScottyKaz in what promises to be a fun chapter in the neverending and always simmering duel between the Former World Champs and eventual Champs-To-Be. We've got a spectacular Friday Night Fight, so brighten your lights (thanks Franzone) and rock your house. Live from Tropicana Field: Rays v. Red Sox. Right Now.

Those are kinda fun to write.

The Sox series are always the best. So lively. Here's to the Ray Team making the Rays fans take down those soppy I'm-from-New-England types who jumped on the bandwagon when it was still cool to call Jonny Damon a caveman.

Falling Out

2006-04-26T07:47:00.000-04:00

The most what-is-he-saying lyrics of the last few months have to be Sugar We're Going Down.

Making up words for them is fun.

We're going downtown in a merry-go-round/Sugar we're going down swinging/I'll be #1 with a mullet/Laid back complex with Jimmy Buffet

Here's the real deal.

April 20

2006-04-20T08:40:00.000-04:00

Oh April 20. How fondly dost thou linger in my memory; a splendidly sunny spring Saturday in the middle of the Mitten you were, watching over the 4 of us graduating from lovely Alma College. More like 384, because with 4, we wouldn't have to sit around and hear names called for 62 hours. Aguilar, I believe, to Zimmerman, was the order. But I could be wrong.

I'm not in any sort of graduation mindset because the couple people I know who're graduating from the University of Tampa still have about 3 weeks. But the Scots graduate Saturday, meaning it'll be the 4 year-anniversary of the Class of 2002 walking and quite possibly the last time I was ever to encounter Dr. Hulme. Technically, the anniversary is today.

I'm not sad, or sappy, or silly; I just think it's a good time to reflect on life. Four years of college, and then four years of non-college. What have I done?

I think living in the nation's capital was a nice first step after that horrid I've-graduated-and-I'm-sending-out 1,000-resumes phase. (Speaking of which: I don't think that's such a big problem if you go to school in a city where there's an actual economy. You can do internships while you go to class and still want to stick around after school's over, unlike, say, Alma, where there are no internships and no one wants to stick around. I mean, I got my first job because of a Washington, DC, summer internship, so I can only assume that physically being in the city for 4 years would have yielded a variety of opportunities.) Working at a solid institution like Georgetown and meeting/seeing some serious movers in society (Bono, Clinton, Donaldson, William Peter Blatty, look I'm name-dropping) was good for my big-picture philosophy...seeing these people as, well, people, made them smaller. Bono is insanely short.

I wish Chris and I had lived together. We still have a damn fine friendship, but we would have had so much fun. We did anyway, playing tennis and going to PollyEsther's and rooting futilely for the Hoyas and eating dinner with Sarah every Friday night.

I gradually began to learn the DC game; the Hollywood of the East, and I didn't want to play it anymore. I couldn't care less who you knew, and that made a difference to a lot of people. What was worse was that, since everyone was fairly intelligent, they made a point to not let you know that they knew people, and that was somehow more infuriating than them actually telling you. Right.

Almost as infuriating was the non-conformist conformity. Again, everyone was so bright that they had no problem marching to their own drummers, knowing that everyone else was as well. But becuase everyone was marching, the non-conformity became conformity, and blog posts started sounding lame and slightly postmodern and English-professory, so they stopped when necessary.

Raleigh sucked. I recommend no one move there. It's too American; too suburban, too Garage Sale Saturday, so blah that it trumpets its blahness ("a great place to raise a family!"). Had it not been for the Mudcats, I pretty much would have hated my life; as it was, I didn't have time to hate my life. You learn lots of fun lessons about the world and people when you go from an ultra-sophisticated environment at the 24th-best university in the country to a minor-league baseball team in the sticks of North Carolina where dropping F-Bombs in meetings is commonplace, accepted, and even encouraged.

It was there that I began to learn that everyone's out to benefit one person. That made me sad, and still does, as it's magnified 100 times in Tampa Bay. I'm having a difficult time dealing with how self-absorbed people are alongside loving my day-to-day job. As for the region, I can't really imagine living in a more beautiful place in the country besides San Diego, various spots in upstate New York, and a smattering of hamlets on the Great Lakes. Don't get me wrong: Tampa and St. Petersburg, as cities, are ridiculously ugly and fairly lame (Tampa having no downtown to speak of), but you can turn in almost any direction at any time and see water. You can get sunsets without California. You can go jetskiing in February.

In sum: I'm ridiculously happy with my choices over the last four years. I've managed to live in 3 major (or semi-major) American cities, visit most of the others (Seattle?) make friends in almost every state east of the Mississippi, keep friends from college, find my career direction, get engaged, all while embodying the principles of a certain fraternal document. Oh yes: And have fun. These last four years haven't been Alma-style, but what ever could be?

Ray Matter

2006-04-11T08:48:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite little moments from yesterday involved, of course, Joe Schultz. The LED has been partly corrupted by the corporate whorage of the world, so now you get your DET/CWS score alongside some kind words from metroPCS telling you that you have permission to speak freely. So I click up the metroPCS graphic, and Schultz turns to me with a look of disgust and says: "What Is That?"

Good story, I know.

I think he was genuinely mad. I, for one, would rather know Melvin Mora's OPS and BB.

But we must make money.

Anyway, so yesterday was our lovely home opener, which was greeted with more anticipation than, say, Palm Sunday. Also possibly Christmas. The raucous fans (the ones without jobs, apparently) turned out at 4pm to shake hands with Julio Lugo and obtain Stu S1enberg's autograph (look mommy, an investment banker!) before settling into a pregame of sweetness that involved (I've never seen this before) a flag shaped like the continental United States. Steve pointed out that Florida looked rather phallic, and I was disappointed that there didn't appear to be any sort of shape resembling Michigan (perhaps it temporarily became part of Canada).

The Rays lost in undramatic fashion, held hitless until the 4th inning and pretty much generally beaten on by a lame Orioles team that's mired in muckity muck.

Speaking of which:

Yankees/White Sox/A's/Red Sox (wild card)
Braves/Cardinals/Dodgers/Astros (wild card)

World Series: White Sox vs. Braves

So there's that.

The last seven days have been zelda-like insane, all leading up to the magical oh so magical April 10. Now there are 80 games to go before people start counting down the days until the next Opening Day. Baseball makes no sense. It's unpredictable, it's slow, it's bloated, and everyone loves it. Go Tigers.

25%

2006-03-28T01:04:00.000-05:00

The NYTimes says that 4 of its 3 million brackets have the Final Four correct. That's amazing. It warms my heart. Why? Because all of the gaseous blabbering emitted on ESPN and talk radio and that moderately annoying fellow in Sales who is convinced he knows more than you about sports was proven, yet again, to be void. Empty. Worthless.

Guys like Herbstreet and his cohort are the con artists of the 2000s and our sports-crazy society. I don't know when they'll go away, but hopefully sooner rather than later, when all of the data finally gets easier to sort and we can simply pick for ourselves.

I still love UNC

2006-03-19T22:58:00.000-05:00

Oh, the excitement continues.

First of all, I've noticed a general downturn in the amount of attention given to politics, George W. Bush, Iraq, and the State Of The World. Perhaps this is only because I live in a baseball bubble where entirely too much attention is given to what Nick Green's role on the team is going to be this year. If I had $1 for every time I read about or talked about or heard about Julio Lugo's trade potential during this offseason, I could probably buy, say, a nice pair of shoes. Anyway, is there nothing going on in Washington? Or am I just not paying attention? Scooter Libby, Jack Abramoff, 3-year anniversary, $9 trillion debt, no Osama, blowing up innocent people in Pakistan, Rumsfeld acting like he has no idea what's going on. I think I sorta am following the state of the country.

I wish I had worked in Congress for a summer. The intern thing. Now that I've found a real career path, I want to have all kinds of internships knowing that I have no future in any of them. But I'd enjoy the backstabbing, the drama, all of the wannabees trying to Get Ahead. It'd be so funny. Then I'd go to PollyEsther's every other weekend or so.

Speaking of PollyEsther's, we've really got to make St. Pete/Tampa a more fun place. This will involve creating a club on the same sort of note as PollyEsther's. If anyone who reads this blog (the 5 of you) wants to start a Fun Nightclub empire, please contact me.

Okay, second of all, the commentators on just about every March Madness game need some Red Bull. Other than Northwestern State's 3-point win, these guys sound like they're very bored versions of Mike Tirico. It's Madness! If Georgetown is destroying Ohio State, make sure everyone knows this. Somehow, I am totally working Georgetown into my wardrobe tomorrow. While watching the game today, I was reminded of how, while working there, I was asked to downplay the fact that Allen Iverson was a Hoya. Frankly, the fact that Mike Sweetney went there is, at the moment, more embarassing. Did anyone see the Bulls' green jerseys on Saturday?

Third of all, I am listening to Hootie and the Blowfish right now. Let's fix that.

Ah, some Zeppelin. All My Love is a Top 30er.

Fourth, I would like to congratulate Ms. Karbo for getting into Harvard Law. I actually heard it's pretty easy. Unlike that Michigan place. Why are all my friends turning into lawyers? Oh right: So my mom will have somebody to...I don't know. But she seems to enjoy the fact that Chris is a lawyer. I explained how if she ever wanted to take over GM, he might be able to help, but that didn't really seem to register. I think I only have about three friends who are lawyers. Or future lawyers. Many others are in various med schools. On the other hand, I totally run scoreboards. I will also not be buying the group's boat.

Fifth, I'm curious if V For Vendetta was any good. I don't really like the HowDoYouSpellWachowskiBrothers, because, if nothing else, they totally ripped off Dark City for their stupid Matrix, which, if nothing else, involved Keanu Reeves, and really the only way you can do worse in a movie is by including Matthew Broderick or Paul Walker as your lead. I'd include Matthew McCougheney in this list as well, but I happen to own Contact, which isn't even that great a movie. By the way: The next person who says "Ferris Bueller" after I reveal I dislike Broderick with the burning passion of 1000 neutron stars (this phrase is more fun to say than write) will get water dumped on his or her head.

Okay, neutron stars. I googled it, and the first entry is a professor's page, and he inexplicably starts it with a photo of Mickey The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Amazing.

I'm toying with taking my site offline, or at least moving it. I'm slightly concerned that my existence as a lowly-but-still-real employee of the TBDR might conflict with various photo albums. Speaking of which: Now here's what I'm going to wonder for a while...I emailed Dr. Lawren*ce some months ago asking if he had anyone who might want a sweet intersnhip down here in Florida. I received no response. And I wonder if this has anything to do with me slurring him on the Infamous Night At PollyEsther's story. It wasn't even any sort of serious slur.

These are the kinds of things you can wonder about in America. I love it.

Poor Heels. GO HOYAS.

Hot with two T's

2006-03-13T21:12:00.000-05:00

DOA, Foo Fighters, hott.

Carolina, 3 seed, hott.

Georgetown, to the Final Four, hott.

That's it. I don't want to overuse the double-t action.

A Tribute To Living Single

2006-03-06T23:16:00.000-05:00

In honor of a certain Paquet girl arriving to stay tomorrow, I believe my 42 months of bachelorhood need a semi-proper send-off that does not involve the "Vegas Showgirls" place on Gandy. So, here's to:

Machnacki and I playing tennis, cooking steaks, and watching the Yankees lose to the Angels on afternoon baseball on a sunny Saturday in Arlington.

My couch. It has cuddled me for so many nights.

Playing Metroid Prime for 20 straight hours.

Listening to We Didn't Start The Fire as loud as possible without Indiana upstairs hating me.

Teri Hatcher and Gillian Anderson desktop wallpaper.

Those three insanely sweet days last March involving KO on IM, lots of O.A.R., some alcohol, cosmic brownies, and staying up past 4am. They just made me shiver with pleasure.

Eating frozen pizzas, frozen chicken tenders, hot dogs, tater tots and steaks.

Never, ever, ever changing the sheets. Or making the bed.

Self-created fraternity rituals. Not really.

24 and The Daily Show with no interruptions.

My own closet. My own bathroom.

All those crushes I never acted on. I'm looking at you, Brian D*Wine.

And now I have to take down the 8 Lindsay Lohan posters. So it goes.

Let's get the living in sin on!

Florida on the brain

2006-03-05T11:00:00.000-05:00

Life is excellent. March in Florida is so insanely beautiful...warm sunny days and pleasant cool nights...the kind that are perfect for driving around, jamming to, perhaps, the All-American Rejects' Dirty Little Secret, which after 1,854 or so listens still doesn't sound old. The Book Of Evil (media guide) that was nothing but a night/weekend/life sapper is done, so now I can focus on getting ready for the season, which I celebrated yesterday by enjoying a hott spring training game downtown. Chris and Jen visiting was a nice happy boost, seeing Mariah was sweet, and the 'rents are coming...and of course, so is Holly. Let the living in sin begin! Being with her for more than five days at a time will be the greatest treat ever. Wedding plans are still going swimmingly, the Pistons are still winning, and the Rays still look like they might be decent. I have enjoyed the production values of Entourage, the writings of Jonathan Franzen, and the lovely Kiefer and his quest to stop the terrorists on 24. And of course, I couldn't be excellent if everyone else wasn't, but Jen loves her job, Lauren passed her boards, Kari has a lovely daughter, Steve is kicking up dust in Atlanta, Mike and Cara are getting married, Colleen keeps running, and Andrew and Mariah are moving to Madison.

Oh yes, last thing: the Tarheels beat Duke last night. :)

CB update

2006-03-04T19:24:00.000-05:00

Oooooooh, poor Duke. A loss to the great Florida State, to be followed by a loss to North Carolina tonight. Heels rule.

Alma finished the season 10-16. So it goes.

All-American Reject

2006-03-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

First off, the dirty little ditty Dirty Little Secret is my new favorite pop turn-on since Speed Of Sound. It's fun and rolls right along with you driving down 275 or whatever sweet freeway you're near. For my loyal readers: have a download.

While we're having fun: The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. Thanks to Holly and her brother for this amusement; I've only run into one person who hasn't liked it, but she's sadly far outnumbered by the people who think Abraham Lincoln pole-vaulting is really funny.

Other cool stuff: Entourage. Chris finally convinced me to watch the thing, and we rolled through all 8 episodes alongside Jen. Part of the appeal (for me, anyway) is how each character is kind of a tool, but each has at least one redeeming quality. It's almost Dawson's Creek, in L.A., with no girl leads, cussing, and straight-up coolness. The question becomes: Is Jeremy Piven really that sweet?

We finished the Media Guide last night. Eric/Jason/Me, 'til 7.45 am, meaning I spent approximately 25 straight hours at Tropicana Field (discounting the trip to the airport and the Subway run). Talk about a day well spent. This will be the best media guide in the universe. And I would say that sort of marathon makes up for all of who think those days in California were spent slacking.

Finally, I don't think it's okay to call Chicago "Chi-Town" unless you live there. Is anyone with me on this one?

All I Got

2006-02-23T06:35:00.000-05:00

Work 'til 1, bed at 2, up at 5.30. Whatever...happy birthday to KO :)

Hott

2006-02-22T00:57:00.000-05:00

A photo almost guaranteed to make you happy...

Good times

2006-02-20T23:51:00.000-05:00

Okay. So I'm rolling through the visitor logs. Someone keeps logging onto the site through facebook. But their IP address is in Plano, Texas. No one I know's from Plano. A WHOIS doesn't help; all I get is that SWBell is the backbone of the connection. Oh wait: Here's the ISP, thanks to the statcounter logs. It's Gerace Construction! In Midland, MI! Amazing. St. Pete/Plano/Midland. The question then becomes: Who is this person? Karb? Should I care? Do I care? This sort of lame website-hopping-as-hacking is about as close to CTU as I'll ever get, so I'll at least have fun with it.

Celebrity guest

2006-02-20T07:31:00.000-05:00

Former quadmate and still fraternity brother K. Ritsema is on The Price Is Right at 11am today. Tune yourself in.

Sweets from little people

2006-02-16T20:18:00.000-05:00

Publix no longer sells Cosmic Brownies. The entire Little Debbie stand, as well as the entire Hostess stand, have disappeared, replaced by nothing, turning Aisle 1 into a wasteland of space and depression flanked by the solderous milk cartons and endless bottles of Gatorade that, I continue to wonder, exist inside the Pistons' cooler. What is that? Just water? Or a "sports drink?" The Mudcats featured PowerAde in one cooler and water in another, but when those little people who always wear hearts hold cups into huddles at timeouts, what's in them? Water would make the most sense; perhaps a former "manager" could tell me.

Today marked the first day the Wizard of Oz ever came up at work. For reasons that can only possibly exist in the minds of people who sit in the administrative offices of major league baseball teams, we're having the last surviving munchkin from the 1939 Best Picture nominee at our FanFest on Saturday. Peter Gammons at 1pm, munchkins all day. It's mind-boggling. This isn't even Mike Veeck-ickish. This isn't a good gimmick. This is so random. We might as well have Mr. Belding drop by. Perhaps the Keebler Elf is free.

Seriously

2006-02-14T08:25:00.000-05:00

Oh, O.A.R. Swoon! Check out this HOTT setlist from the 2.12.06 show in Champaign (pretty close to my perfect show):

Hey Girl
About An Hour Ago
Dareh Meyod
One Shot
Whose Chariot?
Delicate Few
Lay Down
The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)
City On Down
Night Shift
Love And Memories
Like A Rolling Stone
Piano Man
That Was A Crazy Game Of Poker

I'd put in King of the Thing for Feelin' Groovy, but this is almost as good as it gets.

2006-02-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

You just know a trip's gonna be sweet if it starts with Red Vines and Mr. Pibb. Thanks to DougEFresh and J for said provisions, the combination of which set the stage for a swell jaunt to Los Angeles to do "work."

Ahem, WORK: A trip to Staples Center, Dodger Stadium, and LA Memorial Coliseum. Free transportation and tickets to a fantastic Ducks/Kings game at the Pond in Anaheim. A photo op with Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp as Captain Jack and Wonka in front of Kodak after reconfirming for the padre that, yes, the Hollywood sign does exist (it's visible from the Coliseum). And that's just the touristy stuff: Lest we forget some guy at the Roosevelt Hotel crazy mad that he couldn't get a sandwich at 10pm (kitchen closed) even though he was an "important guest." He claimed he was a chereographer for the Grammys; even if it wasn't true, he was about 8000 times cooler than the cool side at Alma.

Post-Roosevelt was the lovely Saddle Ranch, home of Mike's exploits on a bull and the greatest karoke experience of Don't Stop Believin' ever. And probably the only one featuring a girl from The Real World whose name I keep forgetting:

She's the second from the left. There was also a Nicole Ritchie spotting. And seriously: Mr. Belding came to karoke at Dimples. Dimples is pure California.

We learned some things too. About video production. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays will be better. We can build it better. Hoorah.

Out And Stuff

2006-01-28T23:02:00.000-05:00

I'm not nitpicking, because really, going out is going out. But seriously. C'mon Tampa Bay.

Allowing for a review:

Stop 1: Washington, DC. It's Saturday night. You could pick Alexandria if you wanted to hang with the moderately hip kids who were mostly cool in college but now just want to chill and throw back a cold one or two in a microbrewery before calling it a night at 11.30 or so. Or, you could hit up Clarendon; while not the hottest of spots, it was always lively, and you could always walk around with the knowledge that you'd run into people even less cool than yourself, likely walking a dog or two. Georgetown hardly needs mentioning; if you require your Stereotypical College Girl fix (pleated skirts, slighty-longer-than-shoulder-length hair, snobby) or want to run into people who think that by being on M Street makes them sweet, then head across the Key Bridge and prepare to navigate the city's most trafficked sidewalks. Since you're in DC proper, you could go downtown and get behind a velvet rope for one of the many swank clubs, just have fun at one of the more fun places (I love you PollyEsther's), or have an anonymously good time at the ESPN/Hard Rock corridor. And if you're feeling mightily brave, and you're looking to brag about where you went Monday at work, Adams Morgan's a good choice. It's the closest you'll get to New York, with a lot of people living densely and eating bad pizza at 2am after the bars close.

Okay, Stop 2: Raleigh, North Carolina. For being a HUGE college town, this place is insanely disappointing. There are 5 institutions of higher learning in and around NC's capital, yet the city provides little-to-nothing in the way of nightlife. No wonder everyone goes to Chapel Hill.

Finally: Tampa Bay. You might think you're getting the best of two worlds here: Downtown St. Pete and Downtown Tampa. Two downtowns! Double the possibilities for pleasure! The former, in fact, has BayWalk. And that's pretty much it. Downtown Tampa doesn't really exist so much as be; as an entity, it has no life of its own. It's too spread out. Consequently, everyone congregates in ChannelSide, which is kinda hip. But it's built as a place to come and be hip, so it ends up failing to be hip. Amazingly. I shall not bring up Ybor City, which is a sad, sad attempt to be Bourbon Street. It is not. It is downtown Mt. Clemens. But worse.

Seriously, all I'm asking for is a PollyEsthers. Or I'll have to build one myself.

2006-01-26T21:51:00.000-05:00

Just what I need to be doing: Spending more time in front of a screen. But the blogging must commence!

If facebook stopped working forever, would all go on as normal? I'm guessing so.

Chuck Norris. The retrohot of the moment. Why? The List Of Why Chuck Norris Is Sweet is funny, as is the Young Chuck Norris video. And wow: Chuck responds. This is all insanely fantastic. My favorite is probably "The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably."

A link to Lazy Sunday, just because.

Off to do something that doesn't involve a computer. Such things are rare. Out for now.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

2006-01-21T15:48:00.000-05:00

GEORGETOWN JUST BEAT DUKE.

The Hoyas just knocked the Blue Devils off their #1 ranking. They are now my sleeper to win the tournament.

What a Saturday.

Oasis Is Keeping the Dream Alive

2006-01-19T19:46:00.000-05:00

So you're Jack Bauer. And you do sweet things. Like close your left eye and shoot a terrorist in the wrist, forcing him to drop his gun. And all of this is on television. It makes the ladies swoon and the men wish they could be Kiefer Sutherland. Sadly, there is no one on planet earth who even resembles Kiefer Sutherland. He's Bond without all that swooning and swilling. Slate's got a decent interview with a writer of 24.

So you're Young Brandon Walsh, wondering, hmm, should I go to ChiTown, or DC, or stay in lovely Tampa Bay? The goods: The El, PollyEsther's, and warmth. The bads: cold, expensive, and not overly exciting. It depends: Sox, Nats, or Rays; I'm picking the Sox, because they seem to have it going on. A World Series is kinda neat. The best part, however, is that they're all good choices.

So you're Future Madam President Karbowski, continually charting your course for world domination. Do you go to Stanford, or hang on to see if Harvard and Yale come through? Again: A flurry of difficult choices. You really have to pick California. California girls, the best in the world. Even though the song says Carolina. (On this matter, I have no vote: There are both sides of the coin in every state, although I don't have much of a positive nature to say about Ohio. Except for Darlene, but she's actually a Michigan Girl.)

The last two weeks have involved grizzly bears, an altercation with a blond wrestler driving a Volvo, some guy in Publix trying to steal Oreos, and Holly meeting Marc from O.A.R. and making him promise he'll do a concert at the Trop sometime this year. Actually, none of this happened. Seriously, I can't hold a conversation anymore. About anything. I rarely find conversations fun. So I just make up things. People who ask about my weekend get answers about me dressing up as Batman and fighting crime. Because honestly: Just about everyone who asks doesn't care; they're just inquiring to be nice. So I make up things. This creates a fairly convenient situation: People who can't stand my complete inability to give a real answer don't even attempt conversations, and those who like to have fun with this banter (El Nino comes to mind) are a great outlet for whatever nonsense is brewing in the neurons. KO does this well online, Chris does it well all the time, and my bro's okay at it. Holly for some reason puts up with it.

Holly is in Michigan, if anyone's wondering. 'Til early March. Then she's going to live in sin with me for awhile 'til we're married in October. We will do little more than cook tater tots and attempt to memorize the capitals of all of the countries of Eastern Europe and Northern Africa.

mmm, tater tots. Jason/Becky/Myself did up the Dairy Inn on 9th for lunch today; I'd like to thank the blond girl in the embarassingly revealing lime green shirt for providing some comedy. I haven't run into someone drunk at 1.00pm since college. I'd also like to thank said Dairy Inn for selling tater tots, although they're not nearly as tasty as Sonic's.

I swear, this can't be interesting. Huge props to you for reading this far. My new facebook profile's kinda fun, if you want more stimmreck content.

Stage Left, Pursued By Bear

2006-01-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

I seem to be the only person who didn't get an iPod for Christmas. Actually, my brother didn't, but I was quite sure he did after finding some sort of Apple warranty mixed in with the wrapping paper on the Table of Christmas Work. I am still suspicious of the whole thing and believe it will be given to him as a Congratulations You Got A Job Present.

Not having an iPod's okay when you have the Archos 20GB thingee with a headphone jack. It's a dinosaur, technologically speaking; two or so years old with giant black rubber grips that kinda look like bumblebees. I dropped it on a treadmill once, and it still works, so there're points there.

Christmas Break (when you work for a baseball team apparently you get these things; it's like being in college) was mostly splendid, when you get past the PermaGray that is Michigan in the winter. Some highlights included Andrew talking down the cover charge at Bleu to $5 a person, which wasn't worth it since it was the lamest club in Detroit and they made you do coat check for $3 a person anyway. DeLuxe was where it was at, if for no other reason than KO liked hearing "DEEEEEEEEEELUXE BASKETBALL" a few more times than it probably needed to be uttered. Mariah also came up with the idea of a wet t-shirt conference, which was supposed to happen at New Year's but was nixed in subcommittee hearings, which I find disgraceful after the forced butt contests of the past few years. On the flipside, New Year's did feature the Animal Terrorist Formerly Known As Sasha eating a stray deer foot in the driveway of Castle Grant. We can all thank Heard for that. We can also thank Heard for her hot shuffleboard skills, which, if I recall correctly, combined with Holly's to take down the lame-os who fancy themselves, when they play foosball, as the 1993 Detroit Red Wings. I was glad I had Lindsay Lohan and Jon Barry on my team to neutralize Gerard Gallant and Dino Ciccarelli.

I'd also like to thank Chris for the t-shirt that says "I French Kissed Kelly Capowski," which I cannot possibly wear in public without trying really hard to be ironic. On the same note, Chris and Andrew can't really wear their stocking stuffers in public either, so I'll be really interested to find out said stuffers' fates at this time next year. Lo-rise.

Happy '06.

A daily dose of good, clean fun

2005-12-22T05:55:00.000-05:00

I thought this strip was particularly amusing. Happy Festivus Eve!

Oh for the days of Juan Samuel and Curtis Pride

2005-12-17T19:26:00.000-05:00

The Tigers are terrible. Perpetually. Everyone knows this. They last over-.500 season was 1993, and their last good season was 1987...when they traded the 1996 NL Cy Young award winner--John Smoltz--to the Braves for Doyle Alexander, who gave Detroit 2 4.00 ERA seasons and then retired after the '89 season.

The ghost of Ty Cobb has since perched itself over the entire worthless metropolis, laughing.

I bring this up in light of the Tigers' most recent acquisitions, which were memorably one-linered in this story about the Marlins in Slate:

So, why don't more teams follow the Marlins' lead? The Tigers, for instance, could have received a bunch of quality players this winter for Ivan Rodriguez; instead, they signed Kenny Rogers and will miss the playoffs again.

We seem to be reamking ourselves as a poor man's Mets: Rodriguez; the permanent injury that is Magglio Ordonez; the Old Man's Club of Rogers and someone named Jamie Walker; the one-day wonder called Dmitri Young; and Craig Monroe. We now have two closers, in Troy Percival and Todd Jones, who absolutely no team is going to want in a trade, and we have Franklyn German and Marcus Thames.

Mike Illitch's pizzas might be hot and ready, but his baseball team is lousy.

Ryan Jacobs

2005-12-17T00:35:00.000-05:00

Shirk, the greatest white male dancer I know (with apologies to T.Kohl), had this to say: "No way! You're 25!" It was amusing.

He reminds me, almost to a T, of my man Ryan Jacobs back in Australia. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, and I wish I could find him. Ryan, if you're still on this planet, email me.

In other news, one of my sweet tennis balls was lost today. No clue how. Disappearing tennis balls are as mysterious as those times you walk into a room and have no idea why you're there.

The Bro Is Mentioned Twice

2005-12-11T18:21:00.000-05:00

After a happy bout of tennis yesterday, The Bro and I began discussing whether we rank among the world's top 1 billion tennis players. Are we better than 83.4% of the planet's population at the game? I think yes, as I have no knowledge that the people of Indonesia and China, not to mention most of the rest of Asia, as well as Africa and South America, have ever picked up a racket. He pointed out that naturally gifted athletes would have an inherent advantage, but I'm skeptical; could LeBron James beat me in straight sets? These are the kinds of things I wish there was an easy way to discover.

This sort of Big Picture Thinking is entertaining. The UofM vs. OSU game last month, for example, with its 111,591 people (the most people I've ever shared an experience with), sported .037 percent of the country's population.

On the same note, the oak tree that is the Sunday New York Times listed 40,000 as the number of deaths that result every year from car crashes. That's 109 every day, a tad higher then the 14 that was once quoted in USA Today. Assuming the reality is somewhere in between, doesn't this seem like an awfully large number? There's nothing in American life as dangerous as controlling multi-ton machines of metal running at speeds between 1 and 80 miles/hour, yet it's done. All the time. Is this the best we can do? Wookie hates me for bringing up teleportation pretty much every day, but I swear, its time has come.

On a completely unrelated note, I would like to share the difference between New York Life and Tampa Bay Life, courtesy of the wedding announcements that appear in the major papers in each region:

This is from the Tampa Tribune: "Andrew...is employed by Vanc E and Hines Motor_Sports...he races competitively on the National Hot Road Association circuit, riding a Screamin' Eagle/Vanc E and Hines Harley Davidson V-Road."

Great. Follow your passion.

Now to New York: "Virginia...is an associate producer for CBS News...covering politics and Congress. Her father is the general counsel for [Important Financial Firm]...her mother is the chairwoman of the NY Landmarks Preservation Foundation...Edward is a producer in the Washington bureau of ABC News, covering Capitol Hill...he gradated cum laude from Georgetown University.

Or change the world.

I often feel stuck between these two worlds; that is, following the less-than-intellectual passion of baseball and just having fun, or attempting Something Important that Dr. Hulme always challenged his students to do. It's US Magazine as serious reading vs. Benjamin Franklin's autobiography as pleasure reading; James Patterson vs. Jonathan Franzen, and if this makes me an elitist, it's not more than The Bro dividing movies into the Good Movie and Entertaining Movie categories (Memento vs. Armageddon).

Woohoo Sunday Night.

Don't

2005-12-07T10:31:00.000-05:00

An easy way to hinder your consideration for a graphic design/entertainment position would be to put "DOS" and "Microsoft Internet Explorer" under the "Summary of Qualifications" on your resume.

Isn't that sort of like putting "riding in a carriage" and "walking" under your "Stuff I Can Do" category? I'm just saying...

The WE Network rocks

2005-12-06T21:14:00.000-05:00

Other than a brief glance at the O'Reilly Factor to make fun of Bill, I don't watch FOX News. Or MSNBC, for that matter. Not really CNN either, unless Something Important seems to be happening. But the FOOD Network; hoo boy.

I'd prefer my channels a la carte, as FCC chief Kevin Martin threw into the air of Washington some days ago. Some Cable People were like, "No, that'd be really expensive for the consumer, and then there'd be no audience for Oxygen, so basically, it's a terrible idea." Ha! Nonsense! Malarchy! My boy Rob Pegoraro, over at WaPo, has pointed all who subscribe to his lovely weekly newsletter to a Canadian company that offers, including helpful category packages. How nice.

The downside, obviously, is that people who only get 8 channels might not develop interests in what's on A & E or, gasp, Lifetime. And I admit that those terrible Sea Creature From The Deep movies on SciFi aren't really all that bad, once you get past their terribleness. Do you subscribe to SciFi just for these, or will you not miss them? Awkward.

Wizards Of Winter

2005-12-06T07:41:00.000-05:00

This is the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my entire life. Merry Merry Christmas.

Sinope rocks my world

2005-11-30T14:50:00.000-05:00

No more hurricanes! It's November 30! What's up with Canada, seriously?

Bravo, this post's for you. Please leave a comment.

That Was A Weekend

2005-11-21T01:24:00.000-05:00

Machnacki opened his apartment for me again, and by my count, this is his 7th since graduation, assuming you count the peapod-sized room in the Law Quad. I'm proud to have slept in 5 of them, including his latest residence just off State Street that gets Victoria's Secret catalogs.

Friday was OffTheHook, complete with an excursion to Babs and Oz, the former of which has a photo booth. The latter has belly dancing on Friday nights, which actually didn't seem all that interesting. But Jen was in good form, and I'm pretty sure Oleszkowicz was funny.

Saturday was beyond entertaining, all starting with the Turn A Question Around On Jen game that will probably last a while. We then moved onto that thing about robots before serving as 5 of the 111,591 warm bodies in Michigan Stadium. Stupid Ohio State, what with their good defense. 25-21. Heartbreaking. OSU fans are obnoxious.

Saturday night was mostly Jen being Jen, which is never a bad thing. Machnakci bought Oreos, which was HUGE, although we never got around to the BetterMade.

I'd like to thank Michigan for being cold. But it smelled nice. Yay fall. It's 70 in St. Petersburg. Bragging rights are in full effect.

hELLO

2005-11-17T09:20:00.000-05:00

A lot of people I don't regularly communicate with have called or IMed to say hi lately. I appreciate them:

Kelly in Minnesota, Zuziak in Idaho, Eric in the White Heights, Cory in Maryland, Curt in Chicago, FoxyRoxy in the Hills, and even a congrats shout from Ashley in the depths of the Bronx.

She's Back

2005-11-13T22:54:00.000-05:00

Ashley has a new blog:

http://181steps.blogspot.com/

The lovely people in my life

2005-11-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

"Thanks for getting me sick." - dude at work, on his health

"It doesn't affect me, so I don't pay that much attention." - la madre, on the city of Detroit's mayoral choice (weird how I feel like it affects me, and I live 1,200 miles away from that sinkhole)

"If she is, that'd be absolutely, totally hot." - close friend on a girl

The Sky Is Falling

2005-11-13T12:24:00.000-05:00

A lovely Sunday in lovely Florida. Mmmm, Sunday. But it's like Calvin says: You can never enjoy Sundays because you know you have to go school the next day. Indeed. Our lovely postseason media guide is pretty much done and ready for the First Big Edit tomorrow, so it's a Big Day for an Exciting Organization.

Just felt the need (being a journalism major, as if that counts for anything) to comment on the "dark days for newspapers." I wasn't alive, but I've read there were dark days for radio when television started to come of age, and the apocalyptic cries proclaiming the death of the medium rang from all corners of, well, the television. I'd care to disconcur; the evolution of communication mediums shows that they don't kill off each other...they just morph. News pamphlets turn into newspapers. Radio becomes more useful in a car than in a home. Internet turns television into a watch-when-you-want-to-watch experience.

Rarely does any medium completely disappear. I'd suggest most newspapers (except the four biggies) leave the national and international news reporting to CNN and The New York Times and MSNBC.com and morph back into the pamphlets of the past...become carriers of local information people use to make their lives: movie guides, TV grids, high school sports scores and schedules, play times, concert times, festivals, library hours, profiles of those small new corner restaurants, real estate listings, coupons for local spots, water parks, amusement centers, etc. Get local. Stay that way. I'll read about George elsewhere. I know, all of this is very original.

Sweet Florida

2005-11-12T08:13:00.000-05:00

The week has been Pure Excitement.

After returning from a Disney weekend spent with my parents and brother (tearfully billed as the Last Time We'll Vacation Together, Just The 4 Of Us), I proceeded to obtain my once-a-year sickness, most likely thanks to my boss, who we stupidly had blow out candles on his 40th Birthday Cake on Tuesday. Thus, my days involved going to work, working late, and then going to sleep. It's been forever since 10+ hours.

Last night I was reminded that I am lame. The Chuck Lamar Fishermen's Ball was happening at Tropicana Field, which meant that people from Tampa High Society came to the dome wearing hawaiian shirts to say drink wine and say hi to their acquaintances in case they ever need a favor. The end of the event was a live auction, featuring, among other things, a boat, cars, and various vacations. Bidding for these items was well over $1500, oftentimes going to $6500, and these were considered low numbers.

All I'm saying is that I don't ever really see a day when I can shell out $3000 on a whim for a signed John Havlicek basketball, even if the proceeds go toward pediatriac cancer research. I can read all the Theodore Roosevelt biographies I want and call myself smart, but I'd enjoy if the flow was also flowing in alongside the nuggets of wisdom that might be useful for a couch session of Jeopardy.

I'm up this early because my bro went to South Carolina to see Topenga, and Timmreck Taxi Services were needed.

Go Blue.

(Also, I discovered my Wedding Girl Maggie has a blog, so that's exciting: http://www.xanga.com/ringostarrsgirl)

And if anyone finds Ron Wade's cellphone, that'd be splendid. It ran away.

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEETROIT BASKETBALL

2005-11-02T22:23:00.000-05:00

Watching the Pistons DEMOLISH the Lakers right now...20pt lead with 2 minutes left in the game. My second-favorite memory at the Palace was Shout on the videoboard...the mixing between Animal House and the fans was perfect. The favorite is worth a conversation.

The 76ers are not good. At all.

Darko with the points!

Vinny Lecavalier

2005-11-01T23:38:00.000-05:00

The bro and I journeyed to the forbidden land across the bridge to watch the Tampa Bay Lightning make lots of loud lightning strikes on faceoffs and play a decent game of hockey against the all-powerful Atlanta Thrashers, to whom they lost, 5-4. Everyone blamed the refs, which is exactly what they did at the first Lightning game I attended some weeks ago. I blame the Lightning's goalie for letting one go right through the 5-hole. His name is Johnny. So the good men upstairs play Johnny B. Goode. All of us sports people think we're so freaking clever.

Today is Ryan Cannon's birthday. And it's Cory Dunn's birthday. Props to them both. I once heard something about how, in a room with 30 people, it's very likely one of them will share your birthdate. I don't know how this works at all. It defies all logic.

So does Theo Epstein. He must feel so lost at this point; 31 years old, the golden boy who brought all kinds of joy to New England, toting a World Series ring. Where do you go from there? A consulting firm? Maybe Epstein's Epitaph's; the first person he can score some business from is Manny Ramirez. You know things are hazy in Boston when one of the game's scariest hitters is asking to be traded. Who bets the Mets make a bid and unoffcially end his career? Mo Vaughn; ruined. Tom Glavine; ruined. Al Leiter; ruined. Pedro Martinez; runied. Kris Benson, Carlos Beltran, Victor Zambrano. Miguel Cairo, thankfully, plays well for me in MLB 2004.

Things are swimming right along; the Devil Rays, with really nowhere to go but up, have their feet on the first step of the Stairwell To Greatness. Florida is lovely this time of year; the days are crisp and bright and sunny, while the nights are not hot but not cold; you could wear shorts or pants and be comfortable. But you'd still be hott. Yes, you.

Thanks to Eve 6, R.E.M., and David Holmes for providing the soundtrack for this exciting post. Long live notations about weather.

Weather Update

2005-10-24T11:17:00.000-04:00

The sun is shining bright here in lovely St. Petersburg :)

The White Sox Bandwagon

2005-10-23T12:10:00.000-04:00

It filled up quickly after the destruction of the Red Sox, so I'm pleased to have hitched a seat sometime after Game 1 of that series.

Okay, we get that the White Sox haven't been in a series since 1959. This statement seems grossly unfair. No newspaper or pundit ever said, "This is the first World Series the Red Sox have played in since 1986!" during their run last year. The phrase "The White Sox haven't won a World Series since 1917" seems so much more appropriate. "It's been 88 years!" should be a rallying call.

Is this the first series since 1985 (Cardinals-Royals) to take place solely in the Central Time Zone? Who looks up these things? I guess I do. Nevermind; the Twins beat the Cardinals in 1987.

I would like to thank Houston for finally getting this far. I recall picking them to win the sorry Central back in the early '00s (2000 and 2001, I believe), only to sit helpless as the Cardinals won in 2000 and the Braves crushed the Bagwell-Biggio-Berkman-Alou Astros. They fell out of my favor, and it is justice that the White Sox will win now. Except that I like the man behind Junction Jack better than I like the girl behind whatever the White Sox mascot is.

The White Sox have spinning mints on their scoreboard. This is key. And I like Jeff, the man who runs the show at We're-A-Cellphone-Company-That-Bought-The-Stadium-Name-But-Everyone-Still-Calls-It-Comiskey-Park.

White Sox in 5. I'd imagine Roy Oswalt or Andy Pettite will step up for a game. Brandon Backe is either going to get hammered or pitch a 1-hitter.

Wilma

2005-10-23T12:05:00.000-04:00

Hurricane Update: The predicted tracks of Wilma are changing every hour or so. A few days ago, Tampa Bay was outside the track...then we were on the edge...then we inside the track...and now (as of 11.52am Sunday), we're still under Hurricane Warning but a hike from the edge of the track.

Track. Track. Track.

Saturday was excellent, weather-wise: The sun was out (among clouds) until about 3pm; after 3, nothing but grayness and a lil' wind. No rain. No rain Saturday night. Sunday morning's cloudy, but no wind or rain.

The word "evacuate" hasn't even been mentioned by officials in the TB region, and unless Wilma decides to take a serious northernly turn, we'll probably just be looking at some rain and gusty winds. Because of the geography of St. Petersburg, evacuation here would be a nightmare, and I doubt we'd get the call to leave unless a storm was seriously bearing down on our lovely little city. You can't go west (obviously), and the only roads east are two bridges. South (to Bradenton and Sarasota) is not passable except via the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, so you're left to head north, which is tough enough to do on a normal day.

For anyone who is wondering: Tropicana Field is NOT a shelter. Like the SuperDome, its purpose is limited; in this case, to serve people on a given slew of weekday nights for 3-5 hours at a time. Employees have been told to NOT COME to the dome if there's an emergency.
Steve and I will probably buy some water today and, if there's no work tomorrow (they have Hurricane Days much like the more-universal Snow Days), we'll play Monopoly or something. Maybe go swimming, if the weather's nice.

2005-10-21T18:20:00.000-04:00

My computer was begging to look better, so I pimped out the Winamp with a red and black Batman skin, reconfigured the AVS so now these trippy red graphics spill all over the screen during songs, and made the taskbar red so it all matches. It's pure Julie Frick, now that I think of it. Or communism. Which reminds me; I'd like to thank the Tampa Bay theater owners for not finding a place for Good Night & Good Luck. We can put In Her Shoes and The Fog on 42 million screens, but an Oscar contender with George Clooney and the pitcher from Nine Men Out isn't cool enough for any sort of love.

PostSeason

2005-10-04T18:53:00.000-04:00

WhiteSox. Angels. Cardinals. Braves.

Forgetting the at-the-moment destruction of the RedSox, the Cards' earlier win, and Jake Peavy's fractured ribs, it's time for some season-ending parting shots.

The WhiteSox are going to win 3-1 because the RedSox don't have much in the way of pitching. They scored a lot of runs this season (900, .356 OPB) but had a team ERA of 4.76, 7th-worst in baseball. Chicago was in the middle of the pack in runs but had the 4th-best ERA. And the Red Sox look tired. They're playing for everything; the WhiteSox are playing loose and free, and coming into the playoffs they had nothing to lose. The RedSox also have dirty helmets.

The Yankees are going to lose because their second baseman is named Robinson. And because the Angels have cooler scoreboards. New York's team ERA is only 0.01 (4.48) point better than Detroit. De-freaking-troit! They fired their manager! Exclamation point! The Yankees also look tired. Who would you rather have right now...Vlad or Sheffield? Plus, only the other day did I realize Derek Jeter's haircut is pretty much a recipe for disaster.

The Cardinals are really good at baseball. Tony Larussa has a book about him. Jim Edmonds has an I Live For This commercial. And Mr. Pu- I Have No -jols In My Strike Zone plays first. He is 1 of 3 players to ever hit 100 RBI in his first four seasons! Wow! Hooray! The Padres have Robert Fick, and bless his heart for hitting that insane HR on the last day at Tiger Stadium, but his team doesn't quite compare. It'd be great if they could scrape out the series (how about a Padres/Angels World Series), but I'm pretty sure you don't beat the team that has the most-likely Cy Young winner.

The Braves are going to win because the Astros, despite having the best media guide among all the M.L. teams, have a 50-year old guy in their mascot suit. I'm sorry; that's just a recipe for disaster, as nice as that particular gentleman is. They also named their stadium Enron Field, which means it will now be perpetually haunted by schmucky cheaters (Jeff Bagwell?). The Roy Oswalt/Andy Pettite/Roger Clemens triumverate of greatness can't be ignored, and I've always liked Lance Berkman, but I think someone named Jeff Francoeur (anyone with 4 vowels in his name is sweet) is going to steal the show. And Tim Hudson is going to strike out 88 batters in 1 game. That would be sweet.

Then: Angels beat the White Sox. And the Cardinals beat the Braves. Finally: The Angels beat the Cardinals in 7. And a World Series comes to Los Angeles! Or Anaheim! Whatever!

It's Done!

2005-10-02T10:22:00.000-04:00

Rays '05 season comes to a close today! Hooray!

2005-09-27T10:47:00.000-04:00

Karbowski's blog always is an inspiration to share random details of my life with the lovely readers (4 of you, thanks!) of this fine bbbblog.

Last weekend was fun: my brother and I dressed up in mouse costumes and plotted to take over the world. Booyeah. Actually, I flew to the greatest American city, Chicago, so Kristin could house me and feed me and drive me to Grand Rapids for a wedding between high school pal John and his nice now-wife Rebecca. John looks different; certainly moreso than when he used to call me "kid" at the Y when we played floor hockey on Friday nights. Eric was in rare form as well, on two occasions just completely stopping his stories, telling me I didn't care and that he wasn't being interesting, and suggesting we go to the dance floor. He tried to dance with the apparent one single girl there while I played wingman with April, but I guess that didn't go so well. April was nice enough, except that she refused to feed the conversation, and I was thus stuck asking weird awkward questions about why she was there until I ran out and hoped that Eric was getting nowhere with Jamey so I could move onto checking the Michigan score, getting more wine, or remigrating to the greatness of Table 5.

The wedding was swell, and the cake, personally crafted by Rebecca The Bride, was marvelous. Congrats to the one guy we didn't think would get married this soon.

Kristin was a machine Saturday night, driving all the way from GR to Chicago while attempting to see how long she could go without blowing air from her mouth or nose (17 seconds). I don't recall time in a car ever passing so quickly; perhaps it was the kitchen-cleaning Mr. Brightside. Midwestern University is a nice enough school, and the perfect place to spend some time if you're studying goose droppings.

So: thanks to KO, congrats again to the newlyweds, props to Eric, hello Shaun and Maggie and Ryan, and it's now back to Dawson's Creek.

Salisbury Hill

2005-09-21T00:45:00.000-04:00

climbing up on salisbury hill
I could see the city lights

It's been too long since climbing a hill.

Frick's Summer Survey

2005-09-15T00:04:00.000-04:00

had a party: it's always a party at Tropicana Party...I mean Field
gone to a party: 74, 7 to go
smoked: I smoked Carl Crawford in a footrace from 1st to 2nd
drank: and then sang O.A.R.
spent the night with someone: Holly
Laughed until your stomach hurt: no one I know in Florida is funny
gone on vacation: when you can drive to DisneyWorld in 90 minutes, does it qualify as a vacation?
went camping: the plan is to camp on the beach in December
swam: the pool. a lot. and the Gulf.
went to the movies: Hitchhiker's Guide. Wedding Crashers. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Batman Begins.
gone shopping: ohmigod I love to shop!
had a job: more like a lifestyle
got sun burnt: on the back
made a bon fire: burnt down the Yankees
been outside during a lightning storm: I don't know what the outside looks like
been to another state: not really. well, Michigan. and various airports. but I'm not sure they count.
been to another country: to Machnackistan
changed something about your appearance: my hair grew. now I look like Che. not really.
been to the hospital with an injury: I visited the Rays' mascot. She broke her arm.
commited a crime/broken the law: downloaded music
gone on a road trip: not the good kind
kissed someone: I am still working on holding hands with Holly
been to a concert: O.A.R. O.A.R. O.A.R.
been in trouble with the parents: they were like, why does your baseball team suck so much
had a memorable moment: bases loaded, down by 3, 3-2, 2 out, bottom of the 9th. that ball is gone.
had a horrible moment: last night's Yankee game qualifies.
made new friends: I don't really like anybody I know in Florida very much.
missed a friend: Jen
slept under the stars: nope but I did make out under them on a romantic motorcycle ride through the the country side at midnight. you can all gag now. WAIT. That was Frick's answer.
thought about school: sing of Alma Mater
been to the beach: beach?
thought about a special someone: I think about Katie Holmes a lot
spent the most time with: my lovely Devil Rays cohorts. it's depressing to think about, for real.
taken a summer class: that would be lame.
had a crush: Katie Holmes
where are you going to school: The Academy of How Not To Operate A Baseball Team
bought a new car: the Focus is hot
lesson learned: YANKEES SUCK!

The Conundrum

2005-09-14T09:04:00.000-04:00

Stenny blogged about this article in the LATimes; the jist is that despite our lovely president's complete and total failures in things like budgeting, going to war, and responding to a disaster, he's still in office and will be in office until 2008 (shrieks).

Some people find this very comforting. Some of these people think we should round up handfuls of Katrina refugees and "have them shot." (I work with very compassionate human beings.)

I've determined that there's no bridge. It's a chasm. The size of Montana. With hungry crocodiles at the bottom. Who read Proust.

I, for example, absolutely cannot grasp, as hard as I try, how anyone can watch/listen to Bill O'Reilly and find him in any way convincing. I think he is a hippocritic tool who would fit right in with the crocodiles. But on the same token, the people who watch him can't grasp how anyone could even stomach CNN and its apparently liberal bias.

And I don't know why this is. Ideology? Stubborness? The "stick to your guns" mentality? The human inability to ever admit your might have been misled or wrong? I just cannot comprehend how, after scanning headlines, taking stock of this country, and absorbing policies and tactics including nuclear preemption, less trade with China, FCC blocks, continued environmental degredation, ever-decreasing support abroad for the U.S., and of course, the war, the deficit, and the response, that anyone might find it in their heart to stick with this administration any longer.

But they do. Why, I ask. Why?

RantShmant

2005-09-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

I've become inclined to thinking that the working world contains two types of people:

1. The ones who think you should only do what you get paid for...

2. And the ones who, whether through strength of character, a simple compulsion to do what's best for their organization, or a desire to get ahead, go above and beyond their job descriptions...

Just about everyone probably thinks they fall into category 2, if only because they attend a meeting or stay at the office an hour later than usual...but at the same time, a lot of these people don't do these things because their hearts are in it. They do it to not get in trouble or to simply to tell themselves they're riding over the fence and are thus "better" than their fellow coworkers.

These people suck.

Stop complaining! Do a little more! Give a little bit! Stop acting like you are a fiefdom and try to make life a little easier for everyone around you. If this involves five minutes of your time that you'd otherwise spend watching M.A.S.H., well, get the DVD and watch it at home. We're all in this together.

Indeed, I'm so sick of people existing in their own little bubbles...thinking and assuming that the world owes them something, when most of the time, it's they who owe the world a lot, whether through some simple compassion for their fellow man or something more, like volunteering at a hospital. Especially in this industry...you find a lot of people who are convinced they are the best at what they do, that everybody but them makes mistakes, that if only people saw things their way the whole world would be in balance.

These people suck. They are the people who fall into the aforementioned Category 1. Give a little bit more than what's called for. It goes so far.

BOOO

2005-09-10T12:44:00.000-04:00

Terrible idea: Putting Alma's Homecoming on the same weekend as the Michigan/MSU game.

On a more personal level, that is also the Rays' final weekend of baseball in 2005, as well as the Bucs/Lions game.

Thus, I'm missing my chance to see the Lions in Florida, the Scots at Homecoming, plus the Mitten Tussle on TV. I'd like to now thank the people at MLB who scheduled a Rays/Orioles series for an October weekend. Everyone there must truly understand just how vital those games will be.

Props

2005-09-05T19:50:00.000-04:00

Colleen is awesome. Colleen leaves comments. Visit her blog at

http://www.colleenpetterson.com/journal

In honor of yesterday's college football

2005-09-04T11:51:00.000-04:00

In the interest of college football fans everywhere, Michigan State and Alma should play a game every year...call it the 27 Tussle. Why not?

Fallout

2005-09-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

"As Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar, pointed out to The Washington Post last week in talking about the fallout from the war in Iraq, there have been twice as many terrorist attacks outside Iraq in the three years after 9/11 than in the three years before."

Seems worth pointing out.

"Not acceptable"

2005-09-02T13:08:00.000-04:00

Not acceptable? Not acceptable? Are you fing kidding me? Are you the 4th grade teacher, handing out report cards to your classroom? Not acceptable? One year after 9/11, I remember giving this lovely administration a pass, saying it needed some time to create a gigantic new bureaucracy in the name of keeping our country safe. Now our Useless commander in chief calls our whole mess "not acceptable," begging the question...what in the name of all that is holy have you been doing for the last four years?!!? Chopping wood? Watching Keanu Reeves movies? We couldn't stop terrorists from moving into our country. We couldn't find a reason to invade Iraq, so we sorta kinda made some things up. We have no means to exit Iraq. I haven't really been hearing positive reports out of Afghanistan. Reporters go to jail.

SO WHAT IS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOING?? I will grant that we have not seen any sort of significant terrorist attack since 9/11, and that may be because of the great Department of Homeland Security. But incomes are stagnant. The cost of living continues to rise. Getting a good, real job is harder than it's been in (probably) the last 15 years. Health care need not be mentioned. And how many parents want to send their kids to public schools?

It's mind-boggling that people even continue to support this man, his administration, and his slow-of-foot bureaucratic heads who can't seem to get any kind of organization going on in New Orleans and the Gulf.

NYTimes editorial 09/01/05

2005-09-01T23:54:00.000-04:00

George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday, especially given the level of national distress and the need for words of consolation and wisdom. In what seems to be a ritual in this administration, the president appeared a day later than he was needed. He then read an address of a quality more appropriate for an Arbor Day celebration: a long laundry list of pounds of ice, generators and blankets delivered to the stricken Gulf Coast. He advised the public that anybody who wanted to help should send cash, grinned, and promised that everything would work out in the end.

We will, of course, endure, and the city of New Orleans must come back. But looking at the pictures on television yesterday of a place abandoned to the forces of flood, fire and looting, it was hard not to wonder exactly how that is going to come to pass. Right now, hundreds of thousands of American refugees need our national concern and care. Thousands of people still need to be rescued from imminent peril. Public health threats must be controlled in New Orleans and throughout southern Mississippi. Drivers must be given confidence that gasoline will be available, and profiteering must be brought under control at a moment when television has been showing long lines at some pumps and spot prices approaching $4 a gallon have been reported.

Sacrifices may be necessary to make sure that all these things happen in an orderly, efficient way. But this administration has never been one to counsel sacrifice. And nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis.

While our attention must now be on the Gulf Coast's most immediate needs, the nation will soon ask why New Orleans's levees remained so inadequate. Publications from the local newspaper to National Geographic have fulminated about the bad state of flood protection in this beloved city, which is below sea level. Why were developers permitted to destroy wetlands and barrier islands that could have held back the hurricane's surge? Why was Congress, before it wandered off to vacation, engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area's flood protection?

It would be some comfort to think that, as Mr. Bush cheerily announced, America "will be a stronger place" for enduring this crisis. Complacency will no longer suffice, especially if experts are right in warning that global warming may increase the intensity of future hurricanes. But since this administration won't acknowledge that global warming exists, the chances of leadership seem minimal.

Katrina

2005-08-30T20:57:00.000-04:00

Maybe 'cause I've been there twice, and fondly remember the 10-or-so-man street percussion band at the less-active end of Bourbon Street, I can't stop reading the news and looking at the pictures and feeling absurdly sad. The pictures I remember from Andrew were just scenes of massive devestation...houses destroyed, downed power lines, and it seems like, with enough manpower, the cleanup would be fairly straightforward, albeit long.

But now everything in New Orleans is underwater, and the water doesn't really have anywhere to go. Schools closed until December? No electricity for a month? What do you do if you have no house to go to anymore? Does Bank of America insist you have to keep up your credit card payments even though everything you purchased with that card is completely destroyed? Does Ford tell you to make car payments even though your car is floating down Canal Street?

What's weird is that nobody here seems to even care. Doug was watching game shows today; meanwhile, dead bodies are floating down the street of one of the country's most storied cities. "Good thing it wasn't us!" is a common cry. Nonsense, I say. This is the largest disaster on record in American history; thousands of people (if not hundreds of thousands) now have to completely remake their lives.

It just doesn't seem fair.

If you are named Katrina, boo to you

2005-08-28T22:58:00.000-04:00

Katrina, thankfully, bypassed the greatness of the TampaSt.Pete area, despite wishes by my fellow Devil Rays that the Angels couldn't make it into town and thus would cancel this series. (We swept Vlad and his boys.) They were flying in from Baltimore anyway, so I don't know why this would have happened.

Reading this stuff on hurricanes is very depressing. Good luck and best wishes to everyone in New Orleans, Mobile, and everywhere else that's gonna get this monster.

No Way

2005-08-26T21:36:00.000-04:00

Did you know that if you google "plural of ox" and "dj sammy" on the same query, you get no results? Amazing.

Consumer Complaining

2005-08-16T09:34:00.000-04:00

Sometime back in the lame days of high school, I believed that if you were a large organization, you knew what you were doing. After all, if the people who built the organization had/have the intelligence, foresight, and wisdom to create a company that people pay to have in their lives, something right is happening.

Then I went to the State Department, and realized that nobody really knows what they're doing and that many, many people can take eight hours to fill out an expense report and puncture that time period with trips to the conference room for donuts and/or bagels as well as refills of coffee, all in the name of, presumably, an idealism that things are better because of their actions.

Finally, after leaving the bubble of college, I determined that not only do most people have no idea what they're doing...they also don't like what they're doing. And they don't care about you at all. Renting apartments, buying a car, going to the dentist; all of these things seem enoromously more complicated than they need to be (except in Washington; thank you Linda for your fabulous work getting Wentworth Place), and they all seem to come with a perch you must stand on that is mere feet above a pit of disaster that will lead to an endless spiral of lame fees, bad pizza, and dreams about being attacked by large fish.

I ramble about this not because the dentist office plans on charging me money if I don't show up for my appointment, but because I am entangled in a relatively harmless and relatively stress-free but nonetheless pointless drama with the greatness of Verizon Wireless, which would qualify as an organization mentioned above.

Holly upgraded her phone at Radio Shack some months ago, but the douchebag who sold it to her decided, for whatever reason, not to include Unlimited Nights and Weekends, which, according to VW's marketing, is pretty much a staple of any contract. I don't blame the phone company in this case; I blame the useless vermin at RS (which, curiously, since college, has failed in nearly every respect to sell me a product that has worked. They also do not sell a key adapter used in the video setup at Five County Stadium, so a loss of points for that as well...). Nonetheless, the lack of the UNaW caused a $1000+ surcharge on a bill, and while Verizon has confirmed that the RS guy is indeed a douchebag and that those charges need to be removed, they have yet to remove the absurd error, about 2.5 months after it happened. And I don't mind getting the bill, and everyone I've dealt with there seems to be very gracious and understanding, but it's like, okay, your company is the backbone for businesses worth billions of dollars, and you can't get some guy sitting in a dank corner cubicle in a basement to take four moments and remove these surcharges? I realize I'm a long way from the front of the line, but seriously, let's move this process along so my little world can be balanced.

While we're at it, let's tackle AVAlive and Western Digital. AVAlive is a medium-sized business that makes computers for small businesses to do video work. Props to them for taking me as a customer even though I'm just one guy and presumably, a client that is not really going to build a relationship with them. I appreciated that, just as I appreciated some rep meeting me in a Walgreens parking lot to give me a new FireWire card because I thought mine was faulty. That was in November '04.

Sadly, in the last few months, the computer I purchased has been lame. It has three hard drives inside it; all three have gone faulty. Two I've had to replace, and thanks to the cool warranty programs at Western Digital, I've been able to do so for free, minus the shipping costs, hassle, and total loss of data associated with these crahses. (The last hard drive, C:, a Seagate, came back to life when I unplugged it and plugged it back in. This amazed me.) That said, I'm not sure if AVA is at fault, if WD is at fault, or if the fan is just lame and not cooling these drives enough. AVAlive didn't call me back when I left a message, and WesternDigital, after I sent an email saying, look, this crashing, it's bad for both of us, I've sent back two drives, so let's make it stop, sent a reply saying, well, have you tried running diagnostics on the drives? No, you idiot, I sent them back to you...I do not have them anymore...I cannot run diagnostics on them...

...and it just amazes me that all of this sort of behavior passes for customer service. I don't know if there was ever any sort of golden age of customer service in the small towns and small shops, but I don't think I've run across a company since college that treats people (including me) as 1. at all intelligent; 2. a law-abiding citizen (hello employer); and 3. capable of giving useful feedback. Even the bus driver at Disney I was talking to made the fact that the company owns ABC, ESPN, and radio stations sound like some sort of revelation, like, ooh, look at the knowledge I am imparting on you, stupid ignorant wastrel.

(While I'm here, I would like to thank Ralph for calling the room at 7.45am and waking up me and Holly. That's the way to treat your customer.)

Perhaps (in a grand sweeping closing) I'm just horribly tired of being nothing but someone to sell something to...someone to give coupons to at the Winn-Dixie checkout, someone to give 30% certificates to at Borders, someone to get an email address from for promotional offers from Verizon, someone to sell a worthless snack pack to on a Northwest flight. These organizations should be thanking me, asking me for input, in attempts to make their businesses better.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, which is, of course, often the case.

Amazingly

2005-08-16T09:31:00.000-04:00

Holly said yes. This is most excellent. I don't know how she'll put up with me and my nonsense (like watching the original War Of The Worlds, although it should be noted that she fell asleep), but I am so so happy that she will.

We will probably be getting married in Mackinaw in October 2006. I fully hope to double the town's population with the reception we want to have (read: we will have 16 people).

How 'Bout A Revolution

2005-08-07T08:49:00.000-04:00

O.A.R. show last night at the lovely Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. Every girl looked the same: 20-21, long straight hair, denim skirt and flip-flops. College: The place where you forge your individuality.

The band, as always: Excellent. I'd be lying if I said I was completely happy with their setlist, which included Mr. Moon and a few new, very laid-back songs. Encore was Marc singing a song for John Lennon and Missing Pieces, which is just not as fun as the usual post "OAR!!" chants set.

That said, because it's really exciting, my ideal O.A.R. setlist:

Wonderful Day
Risen
Night Shift
About Mr. Brown
Black Rock
James
Heard The World
So Moved On
King Of The Thing
Anyway
Hey Girl
("OAR! OAR!")
Revisited
That Was a Crazy Game of Poker
(goodnight!)

Beisbol

2005-07-30T13:03:00.000-04:00

This is, without a doubt, the best season in baseball I can remember. Maybe ever. Everything seems to have aligned nearly perfectly to make 2005 a fan's dream. On the field, we've got, I'd argue, 24 teams competing for a playoff spot (apologies to the Rockies, Pirates, Reds, Mariners, Royals, and, of course, the lovely Rays, none of whom are very good). We've got Ortiz, ARod, Pujols, Manny, Clemens, Halladay, D-Train, Vlad...Podsednik, Crawford, Roberts, Guillen, Bay, and Buerhle. Baltimore/Washington. San Fran/LA. St. Louis/KC. New York/Boston. Chicago/Chicago. Interleague. Wild card. All the stats you could want on MLB.com and ESPN.com. Baseball Tonight, every night. ESPN, Fox, WGN, TBS, and your local affiliates bringing the game to your screen at least once every day. Tickets as cheap as $5 at some stadiums. Hardly ever (well, Fenway, Wrigley, PacBell) needing to worry you won't get in on any given night. Free bobbleheads, posters, DVDs. Exploding scoreboards. Bands. Highlight reels. Those signs that say "Sportscenter Is NEXT!" on Sunday Night Baseball. Peter Gammons, of course. Arturo Moreno selling Angels hats at his ballpark for $7 so everyone can afford them for their kids.

It's a corrupt and lawless game run by crusty white men who often don't really seem that bright or in any way open to change or innovation. But it's oh so much fun. Forget the 50s (with apologies to Mantle and Mays); this is the sport's golden age.

2005-07-16T14:06:00.000-04:00

The First Post is always some sort of grand monotribe describing the blog's purpose and the author's motivations, followed by some sort of witty reference on some aspect of pop culture. So:

I don't want my thoughts so public anymore. Googling ny name (like, say, a potential employer might do) led you straight to the blog, and I'm pretty sure I made fun of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at some point in there. Naimoli would get all into a hissyfit, and booyeah, I'd suffer the same fate as the Japanese reporter banned from the stadium for using the bathroom in Vince's suite. (It's an amazing organization.)

So now I can make fun of the Devil Rays and anything else, and you, dear reader (4 of you!) can enjoy the oh-so-mighty zingers and self-deprecation that Mike Wyzowski will appear alongside. "Using mostly spoons..."