I'd make a joke about a Travelocity cross-promotion...except it's probably not a joke.
Instead I'll link to Gnome, gnome, gnome, gnomes, and Gnomes of Zurich.
Also, I'll remind you that this week features Kelly's psychotic break with reality.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Monday, April 18, 2005
Sunday, April 17, 2005
Forty-five Thousand, Five Hundred Ninety-Six
is the number of souls who saw the Washington Nationals home opener--yours truly included. Livan Hernandez pitched a great game until running out of gas in the ninth, and they won 5-3. (BTW, check out Livan's real first name...)
I also went to today's game, where RFK Stadium was rocking when the Nats rallied for 6 in the bottom of the seventh to win 7-3. Literally rocking--apparently dating back to the days when the Ethnic Slurs played there, the fans will jump up and down and set a wave in motion in the structure. Makes me glad to have those upper deck seats...
RFK looks like it might play as a bigtime triples park. It's 410 ft. to center and 380 to the power alleys, so it's tough to get one out but there's a lot of room for the ball to roll. In small sample size, I've seen none-too-fleet-of-foot Vinny Castilla and Nick Johnson smack triples. This will be good; triples are fun.
Castilla, incidentally, is becoming a local hero, despite being one of my least favorite players of the last ten years. (I just think he's overrated by virtue of playing at Planet Coors a lot and hardly ever walking.) But on Opening Night he was a single short of the cycle (he got plunked the fourth time up), had a key double Saturday and scored the tying run today. My first Nats T-shirt has Brad Wilkerson's name and number on the back, but he ain't done jack at home yet.
Today they unveiled the mascot--someone contain my unbridled joy--and it's a bald eagle that really looks like a chicken. I mean, its beak is not ripping appart prey, I tell you that. Sam from the Muppets looked more realistic. Oh, and its name: Screech. I mean, I knew Dustin Diamond needed work, but geez...
It's kind of a pain in the butt to upload individual pictures, so I'm making a zip file (which includes a text file describing the photos) of pictures from opening night and a few from my seat today, which is my season-long location. Warning: it's just shy of 5MB, so it's Not Safe For Dial-Up. But you want documentation, it takes space, baby.
I also went to today's game, where RFK Stadium was rocking when the Nats rallied for 6 in the bottom of the seventh to win 7-3. Literally rocking--apparently dating back to the days when the Ethnic Slurs played there, the fans will jump up and down and set a wave in motion in the structure. Makes me glad to have those upper deck seats...
RFK looks like it might play as a bigtime triples park. It's 410 ft. to center and 380 to the power alleys, so it's tough to get one out but there's a lot of room for the ball to roll. In small sample size, I've seen none-too-fleet-of-foot Vinny Castilla and Nick Johnson smack triples. This will be good; triples are fun.
Castilla, incidentally, is becoming a local hero, despite being one of my least favorite players of the last ten years. (I just think he's overrated by virtue of playing at Planet Coors a lot and hardly ever walking.) But on Opening Night he was a single short of the cycle (he got plunked the fourth time up), had a key double Saturday and scored the tying run today. My first Nats T-shirt has Brad Wilkerson's name and number on the back, but he ain't done jack at home yet.
Today they unveiled the mascot--someone contain my unbridled joy--and it's a bald eagle that really looks like a chicken. I mean, its beak is not ripping appart prey, I tell you that. Sam from the Muppets looked more realistic. Oh, and its name: Screech. I mean, I knew Dustin Diamond needed work, but geez...
It's kind of a pain in the butt to upload individual pictures, so I'm making a zip file (which includes a text file describing the photos) of pictures from opening night and a few from my seat today, which is my season-long location. Warning: it's just shy of 5MB, so it's Not Safe For Dial-Up. But you want documentation, it takes space, baby.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Talking Baseball
Blogger is suppose to have this publish-by-email feature, but I wrote an email last Monday and it ain't showed yet. Suffice to say: I feel Opening Day should be a Federal holiday. Let's dump President's Day. February is too short to need a day off, and baseball is way more important that Presidents.
I started umping in the Central Springfield Little League, which started its season this weekend. I managed to commit my yearly spring suncreen blunder; fortunately I was wearing long pants and a face mask so the damage is primarily forearm in nature. I was only umping 9 year olds, who do not throw hard enough to injure even though I took one off the mask, three or four off of the chest protector, a few off of the shin guards and a dozen off the shoes. I am not bruised but I am sore from hunkering to call the strike zone and I may have tweaked my elbow calling strikes. Not that I had to call many strikes--the kids, pitching for the first time, were lucky to get it between the batters boxes. Which of course led to the prolonged hunkering and resultant aching quads.
The Nationals home opener is Thursday night, they did a nice job with the tickets. Here's the Opening Night ticket and the Season ticket book (as well as the tickets themselves). They've played some exciting ball early so it should be a fun year.
I've been enjoying the preview of the MLB Extra Innings package. I've thought of paying for it with the money I didn't spend on the NHL Center Ice package, but judging by the flipping I've been doing just to catch at bats by guys on my fantasy team, I think that's a recipe for never getting off the couch.
P.S. Spellcheck tried to replace "NHL" with "NIL", which is about right. Also, it tried to replace umping with "humping", which, if you'll note the placement of "umping" above, would have been really bad.
I started umping in the Central Springfield Little League, which started its season this weekend. I managed to commit my yearly spring suncreen blunder; fortunately I was wearing long pants and a face mask so the damage is primarily forearm in nature. I was only umping 9 year olds, who do not throw hard enough to injure even though I took one off the mask, three or four off of the chest protector, a few off of the shin guards and a dozen off the shoes. I am not bruised but I am sore from hunkering to call the strike zone and I may have tweaked my elbow calling strikes. Not that I had to call many strikes--the kids, pitching for the first time, were lucky to get it between the batters boxes. Which of course led to the prolonged hunkering and resultant aching quads.
The Nationals home opener is Thursday night, they did a nice job with the tickets. Here's the Opening Night ticket and the Season ticket book (as well as the tickets themselves). They've played some exciting ball early so it should be a fun year.
I've been enjoying the preview of the MLB Extra Innings package. I've thought of paying for it with the money I didn't spend on the NHL Center Ice package, but judging by the flipping I've been doing just to catch at bats by guys on my fantasy team, I think that's a recipe for never getting off the couch.
P.S. Spellcheck tried to replace "NHL" with "NIL", which is about right. Also, it tried to replace umping with "humping", which, if you'll note the placement of "umping" above, would have been really bad.
The Amazing Race 7--"Mow'em Down Like Grass"
In high school, during some meaningless trivia quiz in our Current World Affairs course, one of the guys on another team told mine that we were "going down like a sunken ship."
Sunday, April 03, 2005
I Remember California
See? Wait long enough to do this and you get another song title. I regret not being able to title a post "City at Night" (we stayed in Wed.; everyone was beat) and that I never made the Macarthur park trip happen (weather was too iffy).
Other notes:
I got two new food preparation suggestions from the visit. First was being sold outside the Lakers and Clippers games--bacon-wrapped hot dogs. I may have been the only one not disgusted by the concept, and even I didn't trust the cookie-sheet-over-god-knows-what-heat-source frying method. But I intend to make one here. I also intend to make this item that I was unwilling to pay $13 for on the room service menu: vanilla flapjacks. Yum.
What else didn't I mention...one night it looked like they were filming a scene of something in one of the nameless office buildings. They had security out there from morning till night; but that was the day it poured. My room was up on the VIP floor or something; it was no different from Adam's but we had to use our room key to get the elevator to go to the top floors--the dee-luxe apartments in the sky.
And the last talks I saw: the cold fusion crackpots. Ayeee. So much bad science. It's like cleansing the palate; I can come back here and get real work done.
Other notes:
I got two new food preparation suggestions from the visit. First was being sold outside the Lakers and Clippers games--bacon-wrapped hot dogs. I may have been the only one not disgusted by the concept, and even I didn't trust the cookie-sheet-over-god-knows-what-heat-source frying method. But I intend to make one here. I also intend to make this item that I was unwilling to pay $13 for on the room service menu: vanilla flapjacks. Yum.
What else didn't I mention...one night it looked like they were filming a scene of something in one of the nameless office buildings. They had security out there from morning till night; but that was the day it poured. My room was up on the VIP floor or something; it was no different from Adam's but we had to use our room key to get the elevator to go to the top floors--the dee-luxe apartments in the sky.
And the last talks I saw: the cold fusion crackpots. Ayeee. So much bad science. It's like cleansing the palate; I can come back here and get real work done.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
The Amazing Race 7--"Houston, We Have an Elephant"
Really? We can't do better than THAT for a title? Puh-leeze. Did they film this leg in 1995?
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