...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.

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.

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

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.

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!

omg two posts today

Okay, so I'm a little bit bored already at work and while I initially thought that I wasn't going to do one of these things, I've since broken down.

Here are 25 things you may not know about me.

1. I consider learning how to cup my hands and make a birdcall sound at Boy Scout camp one of the major accomplishments of my life.
2. I can juggle, a little bit.
3. I went to my first Major League Baseball game when I was 10, in 1991. It was at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, and I remember absolutely nothing about it. Seriously. The only recollection I have is a mental picture of a run-down Baltimore neighborhood that my dad had to drive through to get there.
4. I know I definitely went to that game because it was free Memorial Stadium duffel bag night, sponsored by Texaco System3. I had that bag and used it to haul my music accessories around until it was stolen last year. Pretty amazing that a shitty free plastic duffel bag lasted me 17 years when I can't make a pair of jeans get through 8 months.
5. I secretly like chai tea, but never order it because I'm afraid of looking like a fag.
6. The names of the bands that I have been a part of in my life: Steve Never Came, Melting Pott, Ice Age Children, the Parking Meters, the Reliants, the Bagshots, the Safeword Club, Brougham Jack (lol), and Poly/Western.
7. The first band name I ever came up with: Concrete Rain. I thought that was the coolest name in the world. I don't anymore.
8. The city that I would most like to live in: Charlottesville, VA. In my mind, the weather is always perfect there, everyone is nice, and it is the perfect blend of big and small city feel. In reality, its probably not, but don't shit on my dream.
9. I love baseball, baseball statistics, and read about baseball history on a daily basis, but I have never been to the Hall of Fame, I don't know what position Micky Lolich played, and I regularly get bored watching baseball games on TV.
10. I like sushi, but I really just like it because soy sauce is involved. I could do without the raw fish.
11. I regularly avoid small deli's and lunch places because I hate looking like an idiot trying to figure out their individual ordering systems.
12. I abhor the concept of mass capitalism and the mega-corporation but I love Starbucks and Target, and I buy cheap Chinese-made goods all the time.
13. I spent five years studying music and history in college, but I have forgotten nearly everything that I learned there.
14. I enjoy playing ambient, dissonant, and 'experimental' music because its fucking easy and you can't make mistakes.
15. The thought of having a huge house with modern conveniences and a really expensive sports car in the suburbs is appealing to me, as much as I wish it wasn't.
16. The most embarrassing moment of my life occurred when I was probably 7 or 8 and I went to a friend's house to play video games. I had to go to the bathroom (number 2) and I used their bathroom that for some reason you had to go through to get to the basement. While I was in the act, my friend's mom came up the stairs from the basement and opened the door to the bathroom. The details are a bit hazy, but I distinctly remember her yelling at me and telling me that I shouldn't be doing that there. I immediately ran the entire way home and never went back over to his house.
17. I love the smell of a lit and burning cigarette but abhor the smell of musty and old smoke.
18. Every time I smell one of those "New Car Smell" pine tree air fresheners it reminds me of the time this crackhead I used to hang out with took my car and got it washed and detailed for me.
19. I have trouble remembering events from my childhood, as well as the details of recent events, and I am very scared that as an older person I won't be able to tell any good stories like old people should.
20. I used to think that I was a pretty normal and 'cool' kid, but I recently looked at an old photograph album of myself with my girlfriend and I realized for the first time that I was a complete and absolute nerd, from head to toe.
21. I work for an A/V company, studied music and audio recording in school, and understand the physics behind sound reproduction systems, but the fact that a speaker can make all that music sound real when it is just a cone that vibrates back and forth completely baffles me.
22. Strong wind irritates me more than pretty much anything in this world.
23. I love to write, and I've been told I'm a good writer, but many times when I'm writing a blog I find myself getting too bored to finish the whole thing and will just stop short. See the blog entry below this one for a perfect example.
24. I don't understand the concept of 'perfect legs' and/or 'perfect ass' when it comes to women. I have never looked at a woman and said, 'Oh my god, look at her legs/ass'. I don't know what good legs or asses look like. I know what bad asses look like, but thats about it.
25. For the first time in my life, I am pretty satisfied with who I am, what I'm doing, and where I'm going.

Back in the Saddle

Mileage: 932
Time: No idea

Yeah, that's right - you read that correctly. The scooter is back! Today I optimistically rolled out my scooter and rode it to work for the first time in about four months. I say optimistically because it is supposed to rain today and it was probably about 49 degrees out this morning - not optimal riding conditions, but I was too excited to not take it out today.

And I suppose now is the time to let all of my adoring fans know that I have moved and am no longer taking my old route from downtown Baltimore north to Hampden. I'm now up with the yuppies and college kids in Belvedere/Govans/Rosebank/Towson South/whateveryouwanttocallit Northeast Baltimore. I love the new place and I love the location, but I have to say I am so far extremely disappointed with the commute. Let me give you a point of reference:


View Larger Map

I can hear all of you saying, "Wow, that sure does look like a nice easy commute. You must be so pleased to take such a pleasurable and pleasing route to and from work each day. How pleasant!"

Well, I can tell you that the route above is the result of a damn-near scientific period of trial and error over the last two weeks. And it is perfect. It is the best possible permutation of possible routes from my house through the hoity-toity neighborhoods to work. So yeah, its fairly pleasurable.

But the first few times I went were not. If you look at the map, the simplest and most direct route would be to take Northern Parkway west to Roland Ave., and then shoot South to Hampden. But all is not as it seems...Northern Parkway is a sonovabitch. Especially in the morning. Especially at 7:45 in the morning, which is when I go to work. There are four or five schools in that general vicinity, and they all hold up traffic and have weird special lights and generally make the trip absolute hell. I tried this way first, and it took me a half hour to get to work, which is twice as long as it used to take me to get to work from downtown. I was not a happy camper.

To make a long and boring story short, I tried every other conceiveable way between the two locations and settled on this one...its not perfect, I'm sure, but its close, and it doesn't leave me wanting to rip the heads off of small animals when I'm done. Or maybe I just got lucky today and there wasn't much traffic. I'll let you know.