The Mets swept the Reds this weekend, their first series sweep of the season. It’s about time. Now they’re only 8 games under .500 and 16 games out of first place, with a little less than half the season left. Hey, anything’s possible. Just unlikely.
I went up to Sunnyvale this weekend and went to two A’s/Angels games in Oakland. Angels won both (not that I really care about either team) and it was a lot of fun. Mark Mulder pitched a complete game and lost on Friday.
While I was up there I managed to break a pinball table while attempting to fix one of the flippers. Now none of the coils in it fire at all… I have no idea what I did to it. Hopefully, it’ll get working again soon. Theatre of Magic is a good table.
I haven’t really had much to say lately, mainly because I haven’t really done anything terribly interesting. I finally had a good series bowling Monday night (173, 182, 187 for a 542 series). I still don’t like the way the lanes are in that league. I guess I’ll have to adjust to it.
I have gone back to absolutely hating UPS again. I placed an order at officemax.com and left their driver release form on my door. The UPS guy circled a paragraph on the form: “Under certain circumstances the driver may be unable to comply with this request. In these instances instructions will be left on how to obtain your order.” and left a UPS infonotice. I called up the 800 number, and requested that they hold it for me, since I would never be home to get it when they delivered. They said it would be available starting 8am the next day. I go out there at lunch, and of course, it’s out on the truck, and I had to go back that night to pick it up.
Then, the next day, they leave two huge boxes for me from Amazon outside my door, no signature necessary (which is good, but there was no reason for them not to leave the Officemax ones).
I had recently been having some problems with my iPod (headset jack became flaky) and got a warranty replacement from Apple fairly quickly. Unfortunately, this time they charged me $30 (total) for shipping it back and forth. Beats buying a new one, although that would be an excuse to get the newer, smaller model.
I want a Treo 600, badly. Looks like a great device. I will have one, probably in November or December when I can do the number portability thing (my T-Mobile contract is up in July). I’ll probably switch to Sprint, as their data service is cheaper and faster than T-Mobile’s. I’ll have to see how the coverage is though…
Go sign up for the Federal Do-Not-Call list. Actually, don’t do it yet. The site is swamped.
You should all go support the Eldred Act (now officially called the Public Domain Enhancement Act) and reclaim the public domain.
I guess that’s about it for now. I’ll try to do more interesting stuff so I have more stuff to write about.
Yanks win the first game of this year’s Subway Series, 5-0.
I’m going to the Dodgers/Angels tomorrow, my first game at Dodger stadium, even though it’s the closest stadium to me, I’ve been living out here for almost two years now, and I’ve been to all four other stadiums in California.
It’s been 11 days since my last entry. I’ve really been meaning to write stuff here, but just haven’t found the time (or the motivation, really). Quite a bit has happened since we made the playoffs…
First off, we lost both of our playoffs games, but they were pretty close (by one run, don’t remember the exact score, and 22-18). Not bad, overall, and we should hopefully get better for next season. I do have to hit the batting cages more often though, as it seems I have completely forgotten how to hit. All I can do now is pop it up to third.
I’ve bowled pretty badly the past two weeks. The league I’m in isn’t quite as competitive as the one I was in the rest of the year, and I don’t think they prepare the lanes for them terribly well, because no one really cares. Yes, I’m blaming the lanes. My ball gets virtually no hook, to the point where I have to use my old one in this league. I got my new one (a year and a half ago) because my old one was hooking for me waaaay too much, and I needed something with a little less. I guess it paid to keep it around, though, because there are times when I can’t do a thing with the new one.
The Mets were involved in three one-hitters in a row, possibly the first time any team’s ever done that. Sunday, Steve Trachsel one-hit the Angels (of course, I had to go to Saturday’s game to see the Mets get blown out, and not Sunday’s). Monday, a Marlins rookie one-hit the Mets. And Tuesday, three Met pitchers combined for a one-hitter against the Marlins, and faced the minimum 27 batters. They still suck.
Saturday night, after the Mets/Angels game, I missed my best online poker NY days from a few years ago, so I went gambling. There’s a casino about 15 minutes from Andrew‘s. Not good. I have to make sure to not go there too often. I don’t consider it lost money, because I enjoy it, but I still don’t want to do it too much. I do love Caribbean Stud, though.
I do have more to say, but I can’t remember any of it right now. I’ll leave you with a link to ING Direct where you can open a savings account and get a 2% interest rate, much better than most places around now. By going through that link, you get $50 for signing up, too. (And it’s not a referral link… I get nothing for you signing up through there.) A pretty good deal, if you’re looking to open a savings account.
I’ve either been too busy to write, or not had anything to say. You can try to figure that out.
The Green Hills softball team has, for the first time, made the playoffs, with our stellar record of 2-5-1. I guess I probably shouldn’t mention that four teams out of the five in the league are in the playoffs. Too late, I already did. Guess which team we beat twice.
I started my summer bowling league last week, threw a 210, and averaged 175 over the first three games. A reasonable start, I suppose.
What a crappy post. I don’t really have anything else to say, unfortunately. Except that the Mets still suck.
I’ve gone completely insane, and now have far too much money tied up in rebates. I’ve gotta cut down and wait to receive some of them before doing any more of it… but there’s at least one person who is crazier than I am:
That much stuff, for $180 after rebate, is just insane. Of course, it’s like $1200 in rebates. I don’t have quite that much tied up… yet. I do have a nice new 120GB hard drive on the way, though, and more blank CDs than I know what to do with. Hell, one spindle of 50 is more than I know what to do with. I also got $25 of free postage (and a free 5lb digital scale) from stamps.com to send all these rebates in. It’s really cool, I can just print postage directly on envelopes in my printer. Just have to remember to cancel before the 29 day trial is up… unless I actually start using the mail enough to warrant the monthly fee. I doubt it.
I went to San Francisco this weekend, expecting to go see the Mets lose two games to the Giants, but was pleasantly surprised. They actually managed to win two games in a row, something that hasn’t happened all that often for them this season. PacBell Park is a beautiful stadium, too, and awesome for baseball. I really have to get myself to more games, I had almost forgotten just how much fun it is.
I did a few other things while I was up in the bay area, including bowling (threw a 249!) and played quite a bit of pinball (got my initials in a Medieval Madness table). Actually, that’s about it. Baseball, bowling, and pinball. Good way to spend a weekend. Oh yeah, and food and sleep.
There were two things about the weekend that were slightly annoying. Well, three if you count the fact that Piazza got injured Friday night (the game before I finally see the Mets play this season) and is possibly out two months. That, and I got a speeding ticket on the drive up to SF. For some reason, that’s not bothering me nearly as much as I would have expected. It’s my first ticket in California.
Lastly, there was a power outage in my apartment while I was gone, and my stupid cable box doesn’t turn itself back on when the power comes back. This means my Tivo, instead of recording two new episodes of the Simpsons and two new episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, recorded two hours of an empty black screen. Stupid cable box. It’s now plugged into a UPS. Yeah, you read that right. I have battery backup for my cable box. Oh yeah, it missed an episode of Farscape, too.
I bought the UPS at Staples today, along with a 52x24x52 CD-RW drive (which will likely only be used as a regular CD drive for one of my machines that didn’t have one), 100 blank CDs, and a bunch of other random crap. All for $130 – $110 in rebates. I think I need help. Well, actually, I have help in FatWallet and Rebate Tracker. Don’t know what I’d do without them.
Well, I should probably be getting to sleep, because I want to (for the millionth time) start getting into work earlier. Somehow, I doubt it’ll happen.
On June 2, the Federal Communications Commission intends to lift restrictions on media ownership that could allow your local newspaper, cable provider, radio stations, and TV channels all to be owned by one company. The result could be the disappearance of the checks and balances provided by a competitive media marketplace — and huge cutbacks in local news and reporting. Good, balanced information is the basis for our democracy.
http://www.moveon.org/stopthefcc/
Late in 2002, shortly after the FCC announced its formal review of remaining major media ownership rules, FCC member Michael Copps issued a challenge to the news media: If these companies wanted the FCC to believe they could be trusted to grow larger and larger and still serve the public, they could prove that was the case by covering the FCC debate over whether or not to eliminate the media ownership rules. The news media have a duty, Copps argued, to make the general public informed participants in the proceedings, as the outcome would directly affect the future of our entire media system, and our political system.
Copps raised the issue then, and has done so repeatedly since then, because the very firms that control the news media that must inform the American people about this issue are also the main beneficiaries of relaxed rules.
The largest media firms have a distinct and enormous material self-interest in scrapping these rules. All evidence suggests that the vast majority of Americans who are familiar with what the FCC is doing are opposed to relaxing or eliminating the media ownership rules. A Pew study shows that only 28% of Americans even know about the deregulation, and the giant firms that rule our news media have little or no incentive to cover this story. But do not think these firms do not understand it to be an important issue. They have spent a vast fortune to influence lawmakers and regulators to make sure they get their way in Washington.
Such media concentration not only violates the premises of a competitive marketplace, but it makes a mockery of the notion of a free press enshrined in the Constitution.
http://www.mediareform.net/why.php
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