Friday, April 24, 2009

the Minor League Experiment

Well, I have a new summer project: I'm going to visit all of the minor league baseball stadiums in a drivable radius around Baltimore. Why minor league stadiums, you ask? Well, they're cheap, and so am I.

It's actually kinda sad how few minor league stadiums that I've been to considering how many are in the state of Maryland alone. I'm pretty sure I've only been to Harry Grove (heh) Stadium in Frederick once and I pretty much spent my childhood at Municipal Stadium in Hagerstown. But that's it - I have to go see Bowie, and Delmarva, and Aberdeen, and Waldorf just to get current on the stadiums in Maryland. Plus there's a few in Southern PA, Delaware, and West Virginny. So it will be a busy summer - I plan on going to one every weekend.

As of this writing, my wonderful girlfriend is acting like she's excited about the whole thing. I'll give her credit for that. Once we have to start driving 5 hours to see a shitty short-season A-ball team in southern WV though...well we'll see where we are.

But who wouldn't be excited about our first game: the York Revolution's home opener next Friday! Fireworks! Cheap seats! Fat men dancing in between innings! York PA! It's going to be great, I guarantee it. And the best part - we're sitting in the third row from the field on the first base side. Price: $10.

So I'll try to update the ol' blog when I get back from these trips with some pictures and info about the stadium and our fun-filled getaways. Something to look forward to. Oh, that and midgets in the batters box.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Where Your Humble Blogger Loses All Dignity

Well, I did it.

Let me take that back: They made me do it.

I never started out wanting an iPhone.

I never wanted to feed into the massive corporate machine that is Apple.

I never wanted to validate their closed architecture operating systems and regimented control over all third-party apps.

I never wanted to validate this guy:

But, alas, I did. But I maintain that it was everyone else who made me do it. It was LG, and Samsung, and Blackberry, and Palm, and Nokia, and Windows Mobile, and everyone else who just can't seem to make a phone that is even remotely in the same league as the iPhone.

I read plenty of reviews on the iPhone before I exchanged my LG Incite for it, and most of them basically said this:

Cons: Can't copy and paste text, battery life good but not spectacular...ummm...the case isn't aluminum anymore?

Pros: It is a phone that works right the first time and is actually fun to use.

Seriously - go read them for yourselves. I'm not saying the iPhone is perfect; no one is. But the crux of the issue is that the iPhone kicks everyone's ass on the features that actually matter to everyone. I mean, I kinda enjoyed having to edit the registry of my Incite to make it run Internet Explorer a little bit quicker, but in reality I'm much happier playing around in the app store and flicking between my home pages. I mean, I kinda enjoyed trying to figure out why the microphone on my phone would cut out after I loaded Windows Live Search, but in reality I'm much happier watching Shazaam do its crazy magical song-finding shit.

It pains me to write this, it really does. And when it comes to computers, I will always be a PC nerd because I like fucking with all that stuff. But I'm sticking with the iPhone because it works.


ooh plus it has a level and a flashlight~!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Commenta non Grata

So I learned yesterday that I had the ol' settin's on my settin's page set to have it that only registered users could post comments on my ol' blog-o-spherical page. Well, it has never been my intention to stifle creativity or constructive criticism - every one knows I take criticism extremely well - so rest easy tonight with the knowledge that as of 8:18 this morning anyone can post anything in the comments section.

Seriously, it's not even moderated. For now. Until you start criticizing me too much.

Enjoy.

Monday, April 13, 2009

...And That Happened

I think that one of the things that makes baseball hard to follow for people that aren't really into it is the fact that so much stuff happens on every single night throughout the 162-game season. A typical weekday night might have as many as 10-12 games going on, and even skimming the headlines at ESPN you'll probably miss a thing or two along the way. And the thing is, absolutely cool stuff happens every single night in the major leagues.

I can't believe no one else out there does anything quite like this, but I'm really glad that Craig Calcaterra does. Every day, he updates his blog with a post called "And That Happened", which provides the final score, a quick comment, and a link to each game that was played the day before. It's simple, funny, and a ridiculously easy way to make people think that you follow baseball religiously. Check it out.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

An Update

Hi, all. So I've heard recently that there are actually people who read this thing, so I figure I'd give everyone an update on the goings-on in my interesting little existence. A State-of-the-Blog, if you will.

- I recently went against my self-imposed edict and bought a nice, new cell phone. I always told myself that I would only buy the cheapest, most utilitarian phones possible, because no one ever calls me, and I don't want to worry about losing something that cost me a pretty penny. Well, I threw all that out of the window and bought a brand f-ing new LG Incite. Its a touchscreen phone - kinda their version of the iPhone. I've since spent the last two weeks trying my hardest to modify it to look and act like an iPhone. Why didn't you just buy an iPhone, you ask? Well, shut up.

Seriously, though. It bugs the hell out of me that no other company on this planet apparently has half of the brains and ingenuity of Apple. I want to believe that other companies can make a comparable product to the iPod and iPhone, but every time I act on that assumption, it comes back to bite me in the ass. My LG phone's screen is touch sensitive, but not reliable or consistent. It's not pretty, at least until I put some skins on it to make it pretty like an iPhone. Its slow. It has actually frozen up on me. I have to fuck around with the settings at least once a day. Now, remember, I love to do these things, but goddman no wonder Apple is selling iPhones like they are liquid sex, you fucking idiots. Your products are pieces of trash!!! All they have to do to beat you is to make a phone that doesn't lock up and actually respond in a coherent way to what people want it to do!!!

Okay, sorry for the rant. Back to work.

- I'm finishing up my very first "solo" album. It will have six songs on it that have all been recorded by my friends and me. I'm fairly proud of it, and I'm happy about the fact that I created a project for myself to work on out of thin air and have followed through on it. Good for me. Gold star.

- The Orioles are 4-1. They beat the defending AL champion Rays last night 6-0. Awesome.

- I went to my friend's bachelor party last night at a strip club downtown. While I did enjoy seeing the naked ladies, I just couldn't get into it the same way I used to when I was 18 and we would drive down to West Virginia and drink beers in the back of our cars in the parking lot and then try to wash off the X's on our hands and get caught trying to buy drinks at the bar. It just seemed to be a pretty big waste of money and time. Hmm. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, however, so it might just be me. I'm pretty sure it's just me.

- My girlfriend and I just got ourselves new helmets for the upcoming scooter season, so look forward to actual blog posts about scootering, which is, after all, what this whole blog was supposed to be about when I started it a year ago. Now, you all just listen to me bitch about iPhones. Shame on you for letting me stray so far from my vision!

Now to bring it all home, a picture of a duck with George Bush's head on it:























Shame on you all.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

A blog from the road

This entry is being typed from my brand new cell phone. I don't really have too much to say, except for: good for me, and goddamn is it hard to type on this screen. I'll have to reserve this for ultra-important posts only, which none of them are. Oh well. At least I can say I did it. ttyl brb lol rotfl ggpc

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Opening Day
















What do you mean nobody else cares?

Yessir, Opening Day was yesterday, and what an Opening Day it was. The Orioles won, 10-5, over an especially ass-hat-ish Yankees lineup that included Mr. and Mrs. Paycheck, C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texiera. The mood was great at the yard, and not even a crappy sound system (not installed by my company) nor a torrental downpour could ruin the day.

.........

Well, I had a whole bunch of cool pictures that I was going to crop and resize and tell you all about, but it appears as though my computer has deleted them. This is exactly why I never do this shit. There was a guy with a Mark McLemore jersey! Mark McLemore! Now no one will ever believe me...damn it.

Monday, April 6, 2009

It has Sprung

Baseball is back!

Well, kinda. The Braves played the Phillies last night and whooped up on them courtesy of a bunch of homeruns off of poor ol' Brett Myers. Its not completely Brett's fault, though...I mean, look at those eyebrows. That's got to make it pretty difficult to pitch.

Anyway, I'm happy because my wonderful girlfriend got us two tickets to Opening Day today, and despite the fact that the forecast calls for "thunderstorms, strong winds, hail, and a plague of locusts" I'll actually be watching live Orioles baseball today. Hopefully.

I'm bringing my batteries to chuck at Mark Texiera's head, though it would be quite the toss I would have to make to hit him from our seats. But when there's a will, there's a way.

Goh Oh's!