theMediaman.com

Regarding the baseball strike, I heard one quote from some dude on a ball field and at the business-end of a microphone (no idea who he was) say how “sure, the players’ salaries have gone up 100% over the last 7 or 8 years, but baseball revenues have gone up 100% over the last 7 or 8 years too,” and, “they’re just making sure that they get their share of those profits”.

No where in the talks or anywhere in the media over the last month has there been any discussion about the fans.

If “everyone involved” is making twice as much money, then why do I have to pay at least 23 bucks for seats that don’t suck ass, 11 dollars (yes, eleven dollars) for a large beer, $5 for a hot dog and $4 for a pretzel?

And why is there no such thing as a 2h 45min game anymore? Commercial breaks… many, many commercial breaks to wait through - same answer for the question “why don’t fans flinch when a game goes over four hours anymore?”

If they dumped the prices by 33%, they’d still be raking in more greenbacks than they were in the mid-90’s… even if everyone still went to the same number of games they go to now. Following the supply/demand curve… there would be more people in the stadiums - but no one thinks of that.

It’s all bullshit. They obviously have too much money to worry about - and I plan to do my part to help solve that problem. Despite the fact that I love baseball (or perhaps because of that), I will not be watching the Jays for the rest of the season. I will almost certainly not watch Major League Baseball next year either.

To quote Dennis Miller after his rants: “But that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.”

Well, the two most frequently-visited web journals that I read (besides my own, natch) are Hwan’s and Reg’s. In the lazy days of Summer, neither of theirs nor mine has benefited from frequent updates - but after visiting CuriousCharacter.com I found out that one of my friends from “The Waterloo Years” is getting married!

Becky was the one I fatefully handed my resume to at Spectrum Internet Cafe all those years ago (1997). She was the one who dubbed me as “Dimpled Macromedia Boy”, introduced me to Club Abstract (and Club Renaissance) and was the one to say, “You’re too cute to not be having sex,” after learning that I was single. She’s the funnest goth you’ll ever meet - and a geek to boot.

I’ve just now opened the door to starting conversation again, but this only reminds me how out-of-touch I’ve become with old friends. This weekend I plan to write a “What’s Happening In Stephen’s Life Now” for publication to my K-W Crew and even the Barrie Group. In the last few months I’ve gotten emails from both Peter and Chrissy - and unforgivably - I haven’t responded. I’ve also become lackadaisical (to use a Growl term) with my phone calls to other friends like Rebecca, Ruth, and of course, Becky.

Don’t get me wrong… I do learn from my mistakes. Since moving to California to become part of that infamous “Brain-Drain”, Andrew and I have kept in pretty good touch. September 14th I’m flying down there for a week-long tour of San Jose and San Diego (”where he lives” and “where he wants to live” respectively)… this of course leaves Becky open to inviting me to her wedding on the 14th - confident that I have to RSVP in the negative due to the $665 non-refundable airline tickets.

*hint* *hint* If i’m invited but can’t come, then you and Dave will still get a wedding gift from me.

Anyway, beyond a few personal responsibilities that I have to deal with this weekend, I belong to Simone. Most long weekends this summer have been spent at the cottage, leaving her feeling left out. I’ve promised that this Labour Day weekend would be spent with her. It seems to make her happy… and that’s good.

So more on this weekend later… once it’s actually happened. Hope you’re weekend is as good as mine will be!

Last night I rolled about two or three years worth of quarters while watching “Bats“. I bought the movie for $1.99 on the Previously Viewed Movies rack at Rogers Video. Total deja vu from seeing “Eight Legged Freaks” last month… but considering the fact that “Bats” came out in 1999, it’s kind of a chicken-or-the-egg thing.

Anyway, I’m glad I bought it for $1.99 instead of renting it for $3.49. A lot of plot holes and some bad editing (and the ink-jet printer makes the sound of a dot-matrix printer in the movie. Are we to believe that this is some magical printer that can print both ink-jet AND dot matrix?). Overall, good entertainment to keep me busy while rolling $140 of quarters!!!

The trip to California to visit Andrew has been arranged now. He’s got time off and so do I. We’ve organized a rough itinerary (not going to San Fran, but going to several tech museums in San Jose - I’m a geek). And despite recent problems that my brother has had with ordering stuff on the Internet (he’s 0 for 2 - albeit not his fault in either case), I decided to buy my tickets on Travelocity.ca. I was able to save just over $100 by getting tickets this way instead of the first plan - through Sears Travel. I also saved $20 by using an e-ticket, and I fly on United Airlines instead of having to give Air Canada my business (monopolistic &%@#$).

Normally I would be more cautious about taking a ticket from online, using United Airlines and saving money on an e-ticket to San Francisco… if I hadn’t done it all before! This is exactly the same route, airline and method I used to get to my “promising” interview with Disney… except this time I won’t be running to catch a connecting flight in the San Fran terminal. It’s even easier!

United’s North American hub is San Francisco (I think), so that’s why the tickets are so much cheaper with them. After all the trouble Air Canada has given the family with flights to Japan, I’m glad I don’t have to give them my business…

…of course there’s probably an airport tax that they’re going to get. The only way I could manage to avoid that is if there’s any flight from Buttonville to San Fran… and I don’t think there is.

Sorry, no updates… long story that may or may not get posted here. For now, let this keep you happy.

Looks like there might be some patent infringements on Linux. Linus Torvolds takes an unpopular stand (again), but it’s one of those situations where common sense thrives until the business world has to maintain order.

A metaphor would be that if someone in another part of the world discovers an algorithm (like E = mc^2) after someone else, but with no influence by that previous discovery… it shouldn’t be considered patent infringement.

…but I like the way Linus says it.

> Yes, it’s stupid, but we can’t just ignore it.

>

Actually, we can, and I will.

I do not look up any patents on _principle_, because (a) it’s a horrible waste of time and (b) I don’t want to know.

The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If you don’t know what they cover and where they are, you won’t be knowingly infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.

Linus

And you know he can!

OK, this is too cool.

Last night I was driving down Major Mac back from dropping off Simone. As I approach one intersection, I note that the car in the left turn lane facing me had headlights exceptionally close to the ground… like about 6 inches. My first thought was that they were rally lights and the normal headlights were turned off. As I passed the car, I saw that it was not a rally-type car, but a #%^@&ing Lamborghini!

I’ve never seen one in real life except once at a car show, where there were velvet ropes surrounding the car and you couldn’t even get close enough to huck rocks at it. This was definately the first time I had seen one on the road! In motion!

My excitement took another leap when I saw that the driver was making a U-turn at the intersection, not a left turn… quite the balsy move considering the York Region police station is only one block away. Anyway, despite three lanes to make the turn, he was only able to do about 135 degrees, instead of the required 180 of a successful U-turn. This car is meant for the speedway, not a four-lane street. Sure, it can’t turn on a dime, but it has other qualities.

You can imagine my excitement when, after seeing the car turn around I realised that it was coming by for a second pass… I would get an even better look at it! I slowed down to 50 so it could catch up to me. Nothing. It stayed just as far behind. I slowed down to 45…. 40…. nothing. Luckily, I came to a red light (how often do you say that?) and he caught up to me and passed in the right-turn lane onto Yonge St.

The Lamborghini looked twice the width of my car, half the height, and the rear wheels had to be at least 16 inches wide (and no lame spoiler). All accented by what looked like a metallic violet paint job (it was hard to tell for sure under orange lights at night).

I’m fairly sure it was a Countach, but I couldn’t read the frilly writing well enough to come to a conclusion… I just know it was very, very cool.

…I want one.