8-31-06 (16:49)
when i see katherine harris i see pure evil. i also see someone who is
trailing in the polls by about 35 points. bitch.
the mayor of salt lake city just said that bush was a liar and called him
a neocon. maybe there is hope for the world.
necessary
viewing. but read this
first for background info.
the knock on dodgers fans is that they come late and leave early. i didn't
really find that to be all that true at the game we attended last night.
there were some stragglers at the beginning of the game. and the dodgers
were up by 5 in the last inning so there was a bit of an exodus in the
8th, but i didn't find it to be any more noticeable than many of the other
places i've been.
the fans were really into the game from the first pitch on. they're in
first place in their division so that may have an effect, but i think the
dodger fans are pretty good when rated against the most other major league
teams. they're not as great as the mets fans, but i'd rank them in the
upper tier. the park itself is pretty plain in many ways. it's a pretty
straightforward big, concrete design, but design-wise it's about baseball
so i like that. there have been some renovations over the years and they
added screens that run around the loge level. these screens are employed
at many of the parks nowadays because they're so versatile. my only knock
on these is that they're often used to sell motor oil and other products.
even wrigley has one of these under their scoreboard.
dodger games feature more beachballs than any other park in the majors.
in other parks the ushers don't seem to really mind, but at dodger stadium
there's a great dynamic between the fans and the ushers; an us vs. them
mentality that leads to some great peripheral entertainment.
evil ushers are always going after the beachballs:
8-29-06 (22:03)
on a day to day basis, in real life interaction terms, i make myself less
available than the average person. i'm fairly reticent and you generally
have to ask me a few questions or get me interested in talking before i'll
really open up and let you know about myself. if people ask "how's it going"
i'm likely to give a one word answer, and this, i think, is indicative
of my general reluctance to be available. however, on this page i'm more
available than pretty much anyone i know. so, in the sum, it's relatively
easy to know what's going on in my life.
i'm a usc fan, but i don't see why people are talking about them going
to the national championship game or being ranked in the top 3 at the beginning
of the season. first the good: their wide receivers (jarrett and smith)
are good and coming back. they had a good recruiting class. the bad: they
lost two heisman trophy winners. they lost a guy who had 26 touchdowns
in one season. they lost the most dynamic player in college football. they
lost (literally) 90% of their offense in bush, white and leinert. they
lost their best defensive player (bing). they lost their best offensive
lineman (justice). now, will they be competitive? yes. will they be good?
yes. will they go to a bowl game? probably. will they go undefeated? probably
not. their schedule is pretty favorable (though the pac-10 is better these
days), but i really don't see them having a year like they have had over
the last three years. ohio state, notre dame, and miami should all be a
step above usc this year. if not then pete carroll is a genius.
i'm looking forward to going to at least two or three of their games this
year. as usual my dad's mom got season tickets and i'll be around this
year so i'll be able to catch a few games.
bonds had his best game in two years today. two homers and robbed francoeur
of a homer. the giants lost.
letterman has some guy on demonstrating various household tips. one of
them was how to open a wine bottle without a corkscrew and letterman remarked
that he felt like ray milland. that's an old person's joke and i'd be willing
to wager that about only 5% of the people under 30 would get the reference.
the only reason i know it is because i like ray milland, billy wilder,
and lost weekend in
particular. i also like rozsa and seitz who did the music and cinematography.
letterman also has zach braff on the show and he's pitching his new film,
the last kiss, and paul shaeffer started playing the song 'last kiss.'
pictures page should be just about
fully functional and updated now. the various galleries are sorted by year
and theme. there's a slideshow option and the thumbnails seem to load quickly,
but aren't too small. i'm pretty happy about it.
my cousin:
8-28-06 (11:18)
someone should write a book called "they" about all the different ways
"they" are referenced and what social implications the use of the word
has. i'm not talking about two people discussing what a group of friends
did yesterday e.g., "they went to the movies and then had some dinner."
rather i'm talking about the way we all use it to describe the elite, the
shapers, the intellectuals. e.g., "i heard they cloned a chimp last week"
or "they can slow light to the speed of a walk" it says something about
our society and i'm not sure it's very good. i don't think tribal people
employ "they" in the same manner because there's a more communal element,
the gap between the elite and the "middle class" is probably much smaller.
there probably isn't the same degree of specialization as well.
saw a commercial the other day for some car and it featured a man, a woman
and two kids on vacation. there are a few shots of them having fun and
driving from place to place. at the end the man gets out of the car, the
woman stays in and the two kids get out to say goodbye to him. they say
"thanks for coming dad" and give him a hug. while they're hugging he looks
at the woman in the car and says "thanks for inviting me." she smiles and
says "sure." then the commercial says something about the car company making
bold moves and then it ends. it's an amazing commercial on a couple different
levels. nothing is explicit, but we know that this is a divorce situation
or, less likely, the children are bastards (in the literal sense). it's
also an amazing commercial because it's not very frequent that you see
a commercial that is selling a product like this, from a major company,
that will depict the family unit in this way.
meryl left for the bay area today. that's sad. we've been within 3 feet
of each other for 99% of the time for the last few months so it's odd.
started up the book business today. sold one book for about $180 so that
was a good way to kick off the second push. bulk lots on ebay routinely
sell for about a dime a book, it's crazy. why don't people value books?
if i had some way of bringing the entire catalog of books to a flea market
we'd probably have good luck, but that's not practicable.
updated movies list.
outside guadalupe mountains national park we stayed at a motel, saw
a walking stick:
car was pretty well stuffed:
prickly pear cactus:
images from guadalupe mountains national park:
8-23-06 (21:27)
back in la now.
from austin we drove to big bend np and couldn't find a cheap place to
sleep (the van was full of stuff from the texas-california move) so we
drove towards guadalupe mountains np. the next day we went to guadalupe
mountains np. it gets only 200k visitors a year. it's part of the chihuahuan
desert which houses more species of bird than the everglades and more species
of mammal than yellowstone. see, deserts are freaking great. the previous
night we saw quite a good number of wildlife - peccary, foxes, owl, kangaroo
rats, cows, horses, etc. west texas may not have much in terms of people,
but the wildlife is more impressive than you might think. the next day,
on the way to the guadalupe mountains, we even saw a group of bighorn sheep.
after a shortish visit at the park which included a talk with a ranger,
a video and a hike, we left for la.
we went via el paso, tucson and phoenix, on I-10. it's a boring route,
but it got us here quickly. by 5:30am we were at my grandma's house. el
paso is a shithole. i've been in and through the city a few times now and
have never been even mildly impressed by the place. it's smoggy, dirty,
ugly, rundown, in texas, and just plain depressing. it also has an unusual
number of abandoned and broken down cars on the side of the highway.
updated trip page a bit.
8-20-06 (00:41)
i'll keep you updated on the changes to the trip page as they happen.
the yankee/red sox series is just silly right now. it's helping my fantasy
team enormously. i have damon and posada, but i also have beckett. luckily
i did the right thing and benched his ass before he gave up 9 runs today.
the yankee lineup is amazing: damon, jeter, rodriguez, giambi, abreu, cano,
posada and sheffield and matsui coming soon enough. if their pitching was
decent they'd be unstoppable. i think david ortiz is too highly rated.
you hear about him as al mvp, but not ramirez. their stats are similar
yet manny plays baseball (ortiz just bats, fuck the dh) and has fewer guys
to bat in since ortiz bats so many of them in for him. ortiz also has ramirez
backing him up, while ramirez has kapler or youkilis or someone else of
a lesser quality. ramirez also has a better obp and the same slg. sure
he's not known to be clutch, but he's a better everday player. all that
said, i don't really care about either of those players...i'm just saying.
the sacramento monarchs are really fucking good. pinochiero and griffith
are as close as they have to stars, but neither really are. they're just
a really good team, that's why they won the championship last year.
8-16-06 (23:01)
trip can be found here, notice
the link on the left as well.