It's been a few days since I went to these games, but a lot's been going on, as you know from the "Hectic" entry. Anyway, two games between the Yankees and Twins, who have looked awful on their trip east this week.
07.31.05 @ 3:19 AM EST [Click For More...]
The last 48 hours have been a little insane. Here's a short list of the things that have happened.
-- I went to Yankee Stadium for Game 24 of Project Baseball (update coming soon).
-- My power went out for about 12 hours.
-- I went to the beach, only to discover later that someone had drowned about three blocks from where I was dipping my feet into the ocean.
-- I picked up my new computer from the FedEx facility.
-- I waited nearly an hour for a bus that never came to pick me up from the FedEx facility.
-- I discovered, while at an ATM to get money for a car service home from the FedEx facility, that my ATM card and a credit card were missing.
-- I spent my emergency $20 on the car service.
-- I found out that my cards had been used by someone else for purchases in Westchester County.
-- Caroline and I made sponge farm animals by dropping little caplets into hot water.
-- I crossed 19 subway stops off my map, leaving just 40 left that I haven't been to.
Summer in the city!
07.28.05 @ 9:26 AM EST [Link]
I showed up at Shea for Game 23 of Project Baseball. I don't think I can say the same for the lifeless Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles.
07.25.05 @ 3:03 AM EST [Click For More...]
Some things never change, or at least very rarely change. And when they do change, people complain and get them changed back. Such is the theme song of the Delaware Valley's leading news program, Action News on Channel 6. Also on the excellent TV Ark, you can find old news themes from your favorite local station.
07.23.05 @ 7:01 PM EST [Link]
Kaz Ishii warms up for one of the strangest performances I've seen. This season, or maybe ever.
07.23.05 @ 4:07 AM EST [Click For More...]
I just watched "Lost In Translation" for the first time, which isn't too surprising, because I'm way behind on the movie scene, but I'm going to need someone to explain this to me. Why was this movie so popular? How did it win an Oscar for best screenplay? Best screenplay! It was somewhere between trite and pretentious, and unless I'm really stupid and missing some key point, a tremendous waste of time. I could have been sleeping for these last two hours! Curse you, Sofia Coppola! First Godfather III, now this! Ugh. At least I also rented "Office Space," which really I should own, but is guaranteed to be a much more enjoyable viewing.
07.18.05 @ 4:58 AM EST [Link]
I just finished filling up a notebook with notes, quotes and other stuff, so it's time to take a line from each page and see what happens... (I started this notebook in March, hence the title)
07.17.05 @ 2:52 PM EST [Click For More...]
Since I remain lazy/busy and don't have much to share, yet I still want to reward you with something to read for having visited here, I present a very nice story about NASCAR in New Hampshire by my friend Eric. I don't know too many people who can get Model UN and something called Mr. Hot Dog into the same story. Excellent.
07.16.05 @ 7:24 PM EST [Link]
Some gems from a column by Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle:
"Sidney Ponson, almost guaranteed to lose a start following a Baltimore victory, is a burden of incompetence on a starting rotation struggling for relevance."
"Andruw Jones, who couldn't have been more comfortable if his mother was pitching, stepped up against Rogers and hit one roughly six miles. That's Rogers in the spotlight - not to be trusted."
"The Mets have all sorts of problems, worst of all the presence of closer Braden Looper. Nobody wins with a joke bullpen."
As we say in my office, that's some serious shade. And I'm not sure if it crosses a line. But it's a good read.
07.15.05 @ 6:36 PM EST [Link]
...were candies and nuts, then oh what a world we'd live in.
07.14.05 @ 12:28 AM EST [Link]
Things I learned today about Shea Hillenbrand of the Toronto Blue Jays:
He lives in a motor home in Toronto. With his dogs. Whom he brought to the All-Star Game. But who were not allowed to stay at the Ritz-Carlton. So he stayed in a different hotel than all the other All-Stars.
Needless to say, I look forward to interviewing this man when the Blue Jays next come to New York.
07.13.05 @ 11:48 PM EST [Link]
I didn't watch most of the All-Star Game last night, but I did watch the pregame festivities, usually my favorite part for the introduction of the lineups.
It was bad enough that they had Joe Buck read the introductions, rather than the Detroit PA announcer, but who in the world came up with the idea to have the starters come out from a tunnel behind home plate with a lame smoke machine? The NBA did something similar at its All-Star Game, and it was the dumbest thing ever. Why would baseball copy this, only in the lamest way possible? What was wrong with having guys come out of the dugout, run to home plate and slap the hands of their teammates? I guess it just all proves the old saying: the more things change, the more some twit in the marketing department was responsible for screwing it up.
Also, I know that my best efforts couldn't stop the Expos from leaving the fair city of Montreal, but the Blue Jays are still there, and Jason Bay was in the house. So, did Fox just not show "O Canada," or was "God Save the Queen" MLB's nod to the Dominion? American television's habit of not showing other nations' anthems annoys me to no end. It's more of an issue at the Olympics, where you only ever see American medal ceremonies anymore, but it's disturbing.
Then there's the whole "This One Counts" thing. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Still, no matter how much they screw around with a good thing, the game's the same, and I still marveled at Miguel Tejada's brilliant double play and his homer off John Smoltz. Enough to make me look forward to next year in Pittsburgh, where the winner of the Steroid/No-Steroid Home Run Derby will get to hit off a batting practice pitcher in the actual game, and if he hits the game-winning homer, everyone in his home country will get a free Chalupa, while the pitcher with the most strikeouts will clinch home-field advantage for next year's draft. Or free Iron City Beer for a year. His choice.
07.13.05 @ 11:06 AM EST [Link]
"I look at him and see a young Johnny Damon." --Johnny Damon, on the Indians' Grady Sizemore
What do you see? Personally, I've seen Sizemore throw a ball, and it looks like it comes naturally to him, unlike Damon, who looks like every throw he makes is for the very first time. Add that to his natural swing, and I'm pretty sure that calling him a "young Johnny Damon" is either an insult to Sizemore or a great compliment to Damon. Considering the source...
07.12.05 @ 3:51 PM EST [Link]
There's trouble in Dodgerland, but what really gets me here is that the team meeting was called by Olmedo Saenz. I can't remember the last team meeting I heard of called by a 34-year-old backup infielder. I guess it didn't work out too well.
07.12.05 @ 2:49 PM EST [Link]
Clever, clever, Mr. 7-Eleven. Now, the question: Will there be free Slurpees here in Queens?
Update, 3:30 PM: The answer, after a two-and-a-half-mile bike ride, is, yes, they do have free Slurpees in Queens. And the other answer to the unasked question is, yes, biking mostly uphill with the trademark Slurpee Brain Freeze in 90-degree heat will make you think that either your head or heart will explode.
07.11.05 @ 1:59 PM EST [Link]
I don't intend to do this, but I was thinking that one of the great things about baseball is that it is actually possible to see every team live, and only have to travel to other cities because you miss teams when they come to New York, the way I went to Philadelphia to see the Rangers and Diamondbacks, and have plans to go to Los Angeles for the Giants' visit there.
07.11.05 @ 1:43 PM EST [Click For More...]
We've reached the All-Star break, and Project Baseball reaches 21 games in the books. Nineteen teams down, 11 to go.
In other sports news, it's good to see that not everyone in hockey is as dumb as Jeremy Roenick. I don't care about the sniping anymore. Just bring back hockey and bring back the Whale.
07.11.05 @ 1:59 AM EST [Click For More...]
As the result of a Google search for something completely unrelated, I stumbled upon today's Denver Nuggets story in the Rocky Mountain News.
I couldn't care less that the Nuggets have their eye on Marko Jaric. But I was interested to find out that Luis Flores, the former Manhattan guard, is playing for the Nuggets' summer league team in Vegas. And that Chauncey Billups has a brother named Rodney who played college ball at the University of Denver.
Not exactly fascinating, but good information to have in case I ever have to tell someone happened to Luis Flores ("last I heard, he was playing for the Nuggets' summer league team") or whether Chauncey Billups' basketball skill runs in the family ("well, I remember his brother, Rodney, played college ball at the University of Denver").
Now I just have to come up with a situation where I'd ever need to tell someone these things.
07.09.05 @ 10:28 PM EST [Link]
Just taking a trip down memory lane, I was reading some of my old stories, and came across some good quotes. I thought I'd share them...
07.09.05 @ 12:21 AM EST [Click For More...]
Are the Yankees really back? I don't know.
Here's what I do know. If they're going to make the playoffs this year, they're going to have to win the AL East. The wild card doesn't look like a very good option in that division this year. Which is good, because the last thing we need in this world is Yankees-Red Sox III, and the seven heart attacks that go with it. If they do that every year, I'll be dead by the time I'm 30.
07.06.05 @ 11:47 AM EST [Click For More...]
Just a peek into the warped world of the neurons in my brain...
For absolutely no reason, just now, Guy Smiley popped into my head. That's right, Guy Smiley, the Sesame Street game show host.
Sure, that makes no sense, but neither does the immediate connection in my head to Smiley Jones, the trademark doodle of my sixth grade class. Smiley Jones was a smiley face, next to which would always be written "SMILEY JONES!" in two lines, with SMILEY over JONES.
This, of course, immediately sent me to thinking about Smarty Jones, the racehorse.
And from there, I went to Smarty Marty, a guy at the Daily News who has a Smarty Jones placard on his desk that says "Go Smarty Go!"
That led to Farty Marty, who likes to party. At least, that's what we thought was a funny joke in third grade. In third grade, pretty much anything involving the buzzwords "Burp," "Fart" and "Poop" would be guaranteed laughs. Very mature.
Then my brain jumped back to Guy Smiley, and TV game shows, and Press Your Luck, whose theme song is running through my head at this very minute. Which I can't say is a bad thing. The themes to Press Your Luck and The $25,000 Pyramid might be the best in history, followed closely by the theme to the all-but-forgotten Scrabble TV show.
So, Peter Tomarken, Dick Clark and Chuck Woolery, here's to you and your brilliant shows. They're never on TV (except, thankfully, for Press Your Luck, whose two weekend episodes on the Game Show Network are fake TiVo staples) but they're not forgotten. Thanks to the random firing of my brain to let Guy Smiley pop into my head.
07.06.05 @ 10:26 AM EST [Link]
On Callalillie this morning, there was a link to a New York Times story about the city's neglect for some of its parks.
On one level, this makes me even more glad about not having the Olympics, which would only have let the rich get richer and poor get poorer in this city.
But what the article especially pointed out to me was an example of the great divide in this city and country between us (people with brains) and them (those in charge).
(Parks Commissioner) Benepe, who expressed both skepticism and surprise at the park's condition when told about it, said the city's plan was: "Let nature take its course." "Trees are growing, insects are buzzing, oxygen is being produced, and there's nothing wrong with that," he said.
Mr. Croft, the parks advocacy group president, said, "Having prostitutes, drug dealers and drug users in parks is not going back to nature."
Lovely.
07.06.05 @ 9:21 AM EST [Link]
I had this picture in my archives from a while back... I had planned to just do a series of pictures of bars. Maybe I still will, I don't know.
Anyway, outside this place, the Plaka Cafe, as I walked home from the subway, I noticed a police officer counting the tables. I guess this is to make sure they don't have more than they're permitted.
I hate stupid rules like that. The tables were clearly well-spaced and not creating a fire hazard, as well as clearly all on the property of the cafe. Isn't there a better way to utilize the police force in this city? Like, oh, I don't know, fighting crime?
Just thought I'd share a little rage against the system after having to work on the Fourth of July.
07.05.05 @ 3:16 AM EST [Link]
I had already seen the Marlins play at Shea this year, and A.J. Burnett tossed a complete game. So when Eric asked me to join him for a Saturday afternoon in Flushing, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. But it was supposed to be a not-too-hot day, and I was reminded that, living in Queens, I would have a short trip to Shea.
So I went, and I'm glad I did. I got to see some phenomenal pitching and a game that was also unbelievably fast, giving me time to come home before going to work. The lesson, as always, is don't turn down tickets to a baseball game.
07.04.05 @ 2:26 PM EST [Click For More...]
Welcome to the new home for my professional writing. This page will be easier for me to update than the old one, and it can still be reached from the right sidebar of every page on the site.
This is a collection of things I've written since graduating from college in 2002, mostly for the New York Daily News. For college writings in The Daily Pennsylvanian, I don't plan to make that page easier to update, since I have no need to update it... so click here.
07.03.05 @ 4:50 PM EST [Click For More...]
Overheard on the way home from the gym just now... a little girl asked her mom, "Why do dogs have to poop everywhere?"
I didn't get to hear the answer, but I'll bet that question was asked by several members of the Cincinnati Reds back when Marge Schott owned the team and let her gigantic dog defecate on the turf at Riverfront Stadium.
07.01.05 @ 12:31 PM EST [Link]
Latest Daily News story: Braves Get Pen Help (8/1)
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Greymatter. The reason this website no longer looks like the 1998 edition of a Small World Sports fantasy game.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.