News roundup:

This article is a little shocking. Essentially, 1.3% of the males in the U.S. have been to prison. Think about it - you indirectly encounter hundreds of people each day of your life - for every 75 people you cross paths with, 1 has spent time in jail. Weird.

There is SO MUCH wrong with this. In no way, shape or form should a store offer a return policy on underwear. No way. Jose.

I haven't mentioned Maddox here in a while. He claims to have the best site in the universe and with expert writing and pictures like these, he just might be right. It is my dream to be able to write hilarious snippets and be paid for it. To make a living by making people laugh at my written words would be as sweet as it gets. Of course, don't take this to mean that Maddox gets paid or does this for a living, I highly doubt it. I was just saying it would be neat if he (or me) could make a living by doing something so ridiculous.

It's pure coincidence that I've been reading/watching so much about World War II lately and that this weekend marks the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. The memorial down in DC looks pretty nice, but I wonder what the hell took so long? In all likelihood, we'll never see a country so united as we did during that time. Now, I wasn't there and time certainly does polish and shine the past, but the war effort in late 1930's and '40s seemed to be unprecendented and I doubt it can ever be repeated. Don't get me wrong - I believe our country, both civilian and military, is very much capable of rallying and sacrifice, but at the levels seen during World War II? Unfathomable today.

Song now playing: The Kinks - "Afternoon Tea"
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One thing I've neglected to mention so far this year is which video baseball game I decided to go with for my PC. In case you're new to the blog, each season I buy a baseball game and play out a season. A whole season. A couple of seasons ago, I went ballistic and played out two whole seasons.

Anyway, I pick a team, I set up the rosters to mirror exactly what the real MLB rosters look like (which takes longer than one thinks to set up) and then I play out an entire 162 game season. Generally, to play an entire season takes a couple of months and rosters get updated based on real MLB transactions. Obsessive? Yep. But cool as shit.

The game I chose, essentially due to lack of any other option, was EA Sports MVP Baseball 2004. Normally, EA's baseball game has been an insult to anyone who wants a true representation of baseball. This season, though, they've made huge, huge strides. While it still doesn't hold a candle to the realism of the now defunct 3DO's High Heat series (what's that? Do I hear TAPS playing in the background?), they're getting pretty damn close. Graphically, it's probably the best baseball game I've ever seen. There's some small kinks to work out regarding true realism, but EA has really come a long way and this game is very fun to play.

This year I chose the San Diego Padres, a team with solid hitting but questionable pitching, playing in a brand new ballpark. So far I'm 50-37 and in first place in the relatively weak NL West at the All-Star Break, but the San Francisco Giants are nipping at my heels. Jay Payton has been an absolute monster for me, hitting 31 home runs.

So while this game doesn't have the jaw dropping realism that caused me countless numbers of "wow" moments with 3DO's product (TAPS again), my assumption is that next year EA Sports just might match it. Here's a screenshot of Jay Payton breaking his bat on a pitch from Jason Jennings of Colorado. Click on the picture for a bigger version.



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Oh, how I love the Onion:

Bush Posts Classified Ad For 90,000 Troops
WASHINGTON, DC—In an effort to relieve the burden on his overextended armed forces in Iraq, President Bush placed a four-line classified ad in the Monday edition of 75 U.S. newspapers. "WANTED: motivated, dedicated, obedient people looking for career in growing field of nation liberation," the ad read. "90,000 jobs avail. F/T days, nights, weekends. No exp. necessary. Will train. Arabic a plus. Starter pay, solid bnfts." To further boost military enlistment rates, Bush plans to post the job offer at employment offices in 300 cities across the country.

Not much else to report today. No bitching, nothing funny, nothing going on. Nothing. Maybe someone should add some comments about things they want me to discuss here? Go ahead, don't be afraid.

Song now playing: Uncle Tupelo - "Gun"
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I'm sure the front office of the NHL is excited about their 2004 Stanley Cup Finals - Calgary vs. Tampa Bay. While it may be a great series featuring two exciting teams, the NHL is in real trouble right now and it's a shame. The beginning of the end came back in the early 1990's when they brought hockey to San Jose and Florida, frachises #22 and #23. Not only did they allow a team to wear teal, but for some reason there was reason to believe that a) fans down there would really respond and b) the assumption that there were enough NHL quality hockey players to fill an extra 42 jobs proved wrong. But wait - that's not the point (see: $$$$). Ten years and seven additional teams later, the quality of the product has suffered so badly that each NHL team is lucky to have ten NHL quality players, the rest are guys who hang onto opponents jerseys and say "wheee" as they get dragged around the ice. It's really a sad state of affairs. Let's throw some more rum into the drink: they may not even have a season next year because, much like many other sports, the owners and the players are a bunch of babies. You can't even take sides - they're both ridiculous. They have no idea that not many people will even notice if there's a lockout. A crappy, overextended product, greed and low attendance already are wreaking havoc - wait 'till you see what a lockout will do.

In much more encouraging news, I defied even my own self-perceived limitation and successfully, without error, assembled a grill this weekend. And used it. And it worked.

This whole DNC convention business here in Boston is getting nasty. I can't really fault Mumbles-Menino for being upset. The city is already taking a bath on the whole thing, they're closing down like 40 miles of highway each day around the FleetBankOfAmericaCenter and now Kerry's saying he might not even accept the nomination there, which really means the whole thing is a farce - it'll be a bunch of Dems in nice hotel rooms going to parties while the rest of us are utterly handcuffed by the sacrificies we, Joe Public, will have to make. Ah whatever. I'll be out of the town the whole week, myself.

Song now playing: The Cult - "Wild Flower"
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Back home, yo! Lots o' crap tonight!

Google mania may have reached a new high. Or should I say a new low? I'm completely neutral on the topic, myself, but the things people are doing to get a GMail account are simply ridiculous. I wish such effort could be directed towards eradicating racism, or getting George Bush out of office. Or even getting Pavement back together. So anyway, yeah, I have a Gmail account, what will you give me?

In taking two cross-country flights in the past few days, I was given the opportunity to watch three movies. Since I had some work to do, I blew off one of them, called "Chasing Liberty," which looked to me like a truly insulting hour-and-a-half with Mandy Moore as the president's daughter running amuck in Ally McBealish misery 'cause her daddy keeps sending the secret service on her dates. No thanks.

However, I did partake in Calendar Girls, a movie about a bunch of naked old Brit ladies in a calendar who want to sell the calendar, buy a couch and donate it to a hospital. After one hour of this I happened to look around the plane and notice that almost everyone was drooling, not because they were looking at old ladies, but the because the movie had put them to sleep.

So today on my way back home, I was presented with this conundrum. First, though, a note. It wasn't really a conundrum as much as it was a time-budgeting issue. I had four tasks for the trip home: read some more of the captivating Stephen Ambrose book D-Day, get a little work done, read today's New York Times and finally, watch the movie Love Actually.

I managed to get all four in, although I only scanned the New York Times, which easily was trumped by the movie. So, how was the movie? Well, of the three I've had the opportunity to watch this week, it was the best one. Hugh Grant, as usual, plays a bumbling, clueless single man who Brit-mumbles and is the picture of self-loathing. Everyone else is looking for love. Keira Knightley has still never been seen in a shirt that fills her whole upper body (but damn she's cute). Even Billy Bob Thornton plays the President of the U.S., which was really very disturbing to think about until you realize you've just left the state where a former steriod-chowing, womanizing action-film actor is the governor. Oh yeah - did I like it? Well, I must admit it certainly did have some funny moments and I'm shocked to say that I give it a B-minus. Just to make sure, I looked around the plane and caught many other males around my age laughing, too. So there (sticking my tongue out).

So last weekend, as I mentioned, I went to Newport, Rhode Island with Stephanie. We did what many other people who go to Newport do - we drove to the mansions and gawked at 'em. We even went inside one of them, a behemoth structure known to man as "The Breakers." I don't have any friggin' idea why it's called that, but one could assume that because its on the ocean that, perhaps, waves were breaking somewhere on the premesis. Whatever. The Breakers was owned by the Vanderbilts and man, those cats knew how to live. Sadly, they would not let us take pictures inside - a place filled with all kinds of crazy ass stuff like imported marble, gold ceilings and all kinds of other richie-rich crap. I jest, but it was quite amazing, actually. The coolest part was that every single piece in the house was an original - right down to the clothes that were still in the walk-in closets. I did snap some interesting photos here, including one of a cute little bunny rabbit on the grounds. I loves me a cute little animal.

After Newport, we drove directly to Logan Airport, where I was dropped off for my work trip to San Francisco, a city which I absolutely love. Every time I go there, I am stunned by the incredible sights - I always seem to find something new and beautiful to gawk at. I'm not so sure why I found this picture of the majestic Bay Bridge to be so fascinating, but since it's my weblog and bridges amaze me, I will show the picture:



I must also make note of the hotel I stayed in which, completely unbeknownst to me, was one of the more frou-frou joints in the city, a place called The Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel. Now, I am most definitely no high-falutin hotel-stayer. Let us not forget my stay at the Hotel Del Sol in SF a while back, right? Here's the deal: I went online and found this place for $160 a night, so I pulled the trigger, not having any idea whatsoever that it was a Daddy Warbucks hotel, right? So yeah. It was nice, but not my thing. Regardless, one must be impressed by a U.S. Mail shaft in this hotel which ran along the length of elevators - essentially an 18 floor mail slot. If you drop your day's mail into the slot on the 18th floor, down it goes until it lands safely in the box at the ground floor of the hotel. Neato:



I would also be remiss if I didn't share a few pictures of a restaurant/bar at the top of the hotel called, fittingly, "The Top Of The Mark." The hotel sits in a part of town called Nob Hill, which supposedly is one of the higher points of the whole city, so by going to the "Top of the Mark," you get some pretty damn nice views of the city, some of which can be found in this set of pictures. While the last picture (#9) in this set is not taken from the top, it remains one of my favorite shots I've taken in a while....

Song now playing: Shirley Ellis - "The Clapping Song"
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OK, so let's try to understand corporate America. AT&T was in the wireless business at one point. I can personally attest to the utter atrociousness of their service. Overpriced, underperformed and just plain crappy. In what seemed like a perfectly smart move, they bowed to better services (Verizon, T-Mobile) and sold that wireless business, network and all, off to Cingular, another good player. This morning, just a couple of months after selling the wireless business, what does AT&T do? They launch a wireless business. Makes perfect sense! The cherry on top is that since they don't have a network anymore so they plan on leasing it from a staunch competitor, Sprint. I love America.

Song now playing: Franz Ferdinand - "Take Me Out"
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Hi. I'm in San Francisco now after spending the weekend in Newport. While in Newport, I found, perhaps, the best restaurant I've ever eaten at. The decor put it over the top. Anyway, more later.....busy times. Maybe I'll employ my friend Dave to post a couple of times as I'll be hoppin' around the state. We'll see.

Oh, the restaurant was called "Pop."

Song now playing: The Clash - "Lost In The Supermarket"
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Though the article is filled with his usual self-congratulating, Danny Sullivan's thoughts about search engines and portals is an interesting read. Do distributing banner ads and creating message groups really have anything to do with building a search engine? Maybe, maybe not. But we're about to find out. It wasn't too long ago when the Big G was claiming they were 100% focused on search. It's so strange to see Microsoft sitting almost idle in the crowd here, nodding their heads right-to-left like they were watching a tennis match.

Here's a good question: who is your dream wedding band? Who, in your mind, would you want to play at your wedding if money were no object? Note: it has to be a band or a person who is currently alive. You cannot mix and match, either - it has to be a real band. For the record, I think Neil Diamond would be amazing to have at my wedding. Another note: Cheap Trick costs somewhere in the $10-12K range. Yes, I know.

Song now playing: Johnny Cash - "Ring Of Fire"
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Last night's Sloan show here in Boston was more energetic, more fun and way more loud than the show I saw Friday evening in New York. I don't believe I can stress enough how much fun it is to see this band play live, not to mention impressive - their talent is just huge. Slideshow here.

Australia, to me, seems like a perfect vacation. The only problem is the 16-day plane ride. Anyway, you gotta love when the nation's treasurer begs its citizens to go home tonight and put an Al Green record on, if you know what I'm saying. By the way, I'm one of the few, it seems, who finds Al Green's music boring.

I remember once when I was in 7th or 8th grade I missed the bus because I got way further than I thought I would in "Defender" on my Atari 2600, so this story doesn't surprise me at all.

Song now playing: Cheap Trick - "Downed"
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Yeah! That was taken Friday night at The Bowery Ballroom in New York City, which is a fine place to see a band. Sloan's new record, called Action Pact, is out today in the U.S., although it's been out since October in Canada, where they're based. Tonight I'll be seeing them again here in Boston.



Props to my co-workers in NYC who threw me a small birthday party last week. Here you see me sitting in front of an odd, but unbelieveably delicious, large cookie/cake combination. The concoction was whipped up by our favorite baker in NYC at Nana's Cookies, which is right next door to our office on West 17th St. (b/t 5th and 6th). Anyway, yes, that is some sort of blue tinsel on my head and no, someone is not trying to kill me with a plastic knife from the right side. Yes, that is a beer on my desk and no, this wasn't taken during work hours.

By the way, comments have been turned off. Blogger has recently done a pretty major overhaul and you can now use Blogger's comments program (I was using an independent program before), so I set it all up, and of course it's not working. Will try to get those going soon if I have time. I've also been thinking about porting over to Movable Type, but that's a more large scale change that would require more hours and more swearing.

UPDATE: Comments are now working again, although it's a little different now. Clicking on "comments" will take you to a page that is dedicated solely to that's day particular content, at which point you are prompted again to click something to actually leave a comment. I'm not too crazy about this option, so this might change.

Interesting piece of information, parts taken from The Wall Street Journal recently:

"Blind studies show that users can't distinguish between search results from Google, Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, and Teoma. Yet when you put a logo on the page, users show a decided preference for Google.....that totally debunks the idea that Google's search algorithms built on the professional-journal-references model is the key to its success. As The Wall Street Journal's Lee Gomes put it: "Some say Google is the Rolls-Royce of search; maybe what it really is, is the Nike. Googlephiles may think they are exhibiting technical sophistication by their loyalty, but what they are really proving is the extent to which they have been conditioned to respond to logos and brands, just like street kids with their sneakers."

Song now playing: The Thrills - "Don't Steal Our Sun"
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This whole thing about U.S. servicemen and servicewomen's abuse of Iraqi prisoners is just disgusting and embarassing. Realistically, blaming a single person like Bush or Rumsfeld for these events is probably a little shortsighted. Yes, it's on their watch and some responsibility must be taken for it. But you can't fire the principal of a school district if a 5th grader acts up in class. Which is a great example to use here, as the men and women who were watching over these prisoners seem to have had the intelligence of a 5th grader - and I'm probably being generous there. Today's Boston Globe article which profiles some of the servicemen/women is an eye-opener and makes pretty clear to me who's at fault - the whole damn system. The people who run the system for not getting these reserves better prepared to handle prisoners, and the reservists themselves for not knowing any better. A very sad time in our country right now.

In much better news, I'm seeing SLOAN tonight here in New York City and I am psyched.

Song now playing: Palace Brothers - "More Brother Rides"

Yesterday was my birthday. Cinco De Mayo! With each passing year, birthdays kind of get more unbelieveable. For example, I started high school 20 years ago. I graduated college 10 years ago. Etc, etc.

Anyway, I believe that the common cold might be the ultimate game of Six Degrees of Seperation. I seem to have acquired one yesterday (happy birthday!) and I came to wonder exactly where it happened and who it came from. It could have easily come from the plane the night before - a very likely suspect seeing as though I was trapped in airtight, steel tube for a period of time, a place where a virus is prone to flourish. Hell, it might have come from a superstar actor or actress I passed by on the streets yesterday. It might have come from the waiter who served me lunch yesterday. Who knows? It didn't help that I was in the office last night until almost 8pm (happy birthday!) trying to put out two work-related fires.

The night got better, though. Upon getting to my favorite hotel in the world, The Hotel Giraffe, I found out that they upgraded me to one their suites (happy birthday!), which was a much welcomed surprise, especially for a NYC hotel. I didn't ask why, I took the key, immeadiately ran upstairs, and laid claim to my suite. A nice & large, chic, urban suite in NYC is a rare score. After getting settled in, I went across the street to the chain Houston's, where I quickly ordered up a rum-and-ginger-ale (happy birthday) and some Wild Mushroom Soup. The main course was a well-prepared and delicious Filet Mignon (happy birthday). I took myself out to dinner, yo. Sitting next to me was a fashion consultant from MTV whose name, she claimed, was Margherita. This is what I like about New York. You can bump into the most random people and make inane conversation, but inevitably almost everyone here has an interesting story, background, or career to talk about. Our conversation lasted all of 10 minutes and then she was gone, probably to buy pants for a VJ or something.

Song now playing: Guided By Voices - "Hot Freaks"

So I'm on the plane coming down here to NYC last night and I had nothing to read - no better time to whip out the SkyMall Magazine and see what ridiculous items I might be able to buy if I were a true cheeseball. Now, just imagine you had a digital sign which displayed your house number in your front yard. Seriously. In addition to being the definitive laughingstock of the neighborhood, it seems you would also be more or less inviting thieves into your house. For if you've got one of these silly things, then you must have plenty of money to blow on other stuff.

Others:

Right, so what's the point of taking your pets for a walk?

The picture in this one just cracks me up.

There's too many others to name here. The Skymall, which I once thought was boring, is actually a great way to waste time. Try it out sometime, just in case you need Christmas-light body armor or something.

Song now playing: The Autumn Defense - "California"

Goldsboro, NC is certainly an interesting town, to say the least. We attended a wedding there for the past four days. Four days, you ask? Why yes. You see, weddings in the south apparantly involve far more other events than the actual wedding itself. Every day there was a brunch and a dinner, for example. It seems up here in the northeast, weddings are generally comprised of a ceremony plus a reception. Not so down there.

Anyway, I did have some time to go exploring in and around Goldsboro and what I found was a very depressing downtown area, filled with busted windows, empty storefronts and abandoned bars and restaurants. At one time, probably during the 1950's, I envisioned this town absolutely buzzing with commerce, diners and kids in hot-rods. It seemed at one point this area could have been straight out of American Graffiti (later on, in talking to some adults who were born and raised there, my vision was confirmed). What a shame it's fallen so hard. These days, much of the action in Goldsboro is located on the outskirts, where the Wal-Mart's and Target's have moved in. Quite sad, if you ask me.

Anyway, here's some pictures I took. These are mostly of the downtown Goldsboro area. I suppose I could have gone around and snapped pictures of Wal-Mart, or the local country club and all the mansions on the country club road, but that would be boring. So I did what I normally do when I'm somewhere new - I try to find the real town, the real flavor - in this case, it's a sad sight, but nonetheless I got some good pictures. One more note: I cannot say enough about the people of Goldsboro and the south in general. They're nice to a fault - look no further than the picture in the slideshow of the guy with the umbrella attached to his head. I really wish we had some of that up here in Massachsusetts......

Upon landing yesterday in Boston, I had little time to rest, for I attended the homecoming party for my Uncle Bob, who is close to 60 years old, and also his brother Eric. Thay are both in the National Guard and had spent about a year in Iraq, about five miles south of Fallujah, in a support unit. Talking with them was pretty interesting. As you might expect, what they saw over there and what we see on the news are two completely different things. What a shocker, huh? Anyway, both seemed to agree heartily that our troops were sent over very unprepared. Their equipment was outdated, they were not educated on Iraqi customs or culture and it was at times, disorgazined. Also, they were bored stiff. They worked 8 hour days, followed by 24 hours off for the whole year. In leafing through the photo album they brought back, I noticed more than once pictures of temperature gauges, which were almost always above 120 degrees. Yikes.

However, one thing they did mention was that there is a lot of good things happening over there that we never or rarely see. Most Iraqi's are very happy we're there, despite what you see on the news and the polls you see in the newspapers. We're building infrastructure. We're hiring them to help around our bases. They appreciate it and I found that interesting. Anyway, I'm still 100% opposed to what's going on over there but it was good to get some real perspective on things.

By the way, never did make it to the antique farm equipment show - it was rained out.