Quote of the day (regarding SARS in Toronto):
“I’m not in the health board or any of that stuff, I’m just a humble shortstop playing for the Rangers,”
Alex ‘Twenty-Two Million Bucks A Year’ Rogriguez…. or ‘Humble’ Rod to his friends
*Comic Book Store Guy voice* Best game ever.
Sunday, John and I took advantage of a coupon he had in order to get two 100-level seats for $14 each. They were good spots too… just 22 rows up from first base.
The game didn’t start off too great. Two pitches into the game, the Jays were down two-nuthin’. At the end of the second inning, they were out 7-1. The inevitable losers who show up an hour late to the game missed most of what happened.
Halfway through the game, they were now down by 8-1 and at least a third of the 17,000 paid attendance had already left. The fans were exhausted from desperately hoping that there would be some break that brings the Jays back into the running. We degraded to cheering every single, then every walk, and even every foul ball caught in the stands by a fan without dropping it.
At this point in the game, I noticed that the shells from our roasted peanuts were sticking to the plastic seats in front of us by static electricity. I think we spent at least an inning or two doing that, just for the simple pleasure of it all.
After rallying for three more runs, the Jays went into the 9th down 8-4. It was looking better, but nothing too promising yet. A further blow came when the Royals got another player around the bases. Going into the bottom of the ninth, the Jays were now down by five runs.
Over the next twenty-five minutes, the Jays started pulling runners around the bases. Each runner came in as single RBI’s… which only made the suspense last even longer. In a way it kinda sucked, since I had needed a bathroom break since the mid-8th but figured that I would stick it out until the end of the game… that was about 45 minutes ago.
One-by-one the runners came in, until a bad throw by the Kansas City shortstop let just one more runner in, finishing the game 10-9 for the Jays.
When your team is down by seven runs, and you haven’t even had the 7th Inning Stretch, there’s only one reason you stay… it’s the hope for a game to finish just like this one did. The game could not have been more suspenseful, or turned out better.
The only loss of the night was my voice from screaming for My Team after 25 full minutes. I’ll recover, and it was worth it to see the Jays recover from one of their trademark seven-run-deficits early in the game.
Okay, I know that a lot of you still hate Wil Wheaton simply for the character he portrayed on Star Trek:TNG. However, he has a very insightful comment on his web site about faux-left-wingers.
Reason for lack of updates: Gone all last week!
Normally, I’ve been writing in this journal during my lunch at work (which I just found out is allowed to be up to one hour… hence why today’s entry is so long!). Monday through Wednesday last week I was at the Flash in the Can festival down at the Kool Haus/Guvernment.
It was pretty sweet seeing all these people I’ve read about in person. People who have been doing stuff with Flash that no one thought was possible (btw… I was one of the first people who figured out how to simulate arrays in Flash 4 ActionScript). The stuff we saw was truly inspirational - from real-time 3D to sound mixing (and in some cases, both together!). There was some stuff on Flash as an application/database building utility, but that doesn’t interest me for the direction that I want to take in my career.
Normally when I see this stuff, I get discouraged. More often than not, when someone sends me an email with “Cool Flash site” in the subject, I delete it. With the freedom that I have to create right now, I have to stop myself from getting inspired. I know that most anything fancy that I try with any of the work I do now will be rejected.
…That’s all I say about that right now.
Anyway, the best part was having two of the three as sunny, warm days down by the lakeshore. Mona (coworker) and I ate our lunches outside on Tuesday and just baked in the hot sun.
As for the Warehouse (ahem) I mean, the Kool Haus as a venue for showing Flash, the fold-out seats were violently uncomfortable, there were no lights from the rear so that we might write notes on what we were learning, there were peripheral spotlights shining in our eyes, but providing no real illumination, and despite the above 15 C weather, the room was often cold.
I know that they needed a larger venue this year, and i know that it’s only in its second year, but I really hope that next year’s Flash in the Can is better oriented for comfort.
…excuse me now while I stretch my back… I think I’m still suffering from those chairs.
Stephen’s second-ever Passover sader went well (I think). I had to be ‘rescued’ from conversations with family elders twice, but the second time wasn’t really necessary. A friend of Simone’s family was going through all these stories from “The War” when he was fighting for Russia (I think) and was behind German lines. As I told Simone, these are all new stories to me. I quite enjoy them…
…she and everyone else our age were confused by me saying this about the war stories, the taste of mozza and ‘fish-loaf’, and the admittingly long process of telling the whole story of the Exodus before and after dinner.
I’m sure that after twenty years of it, I would be tired of it too.
Anyway, four hours and five different kinds of meats later, I was stuffed*.
* Twenty minutes after clearing the table I raided the fridge for more chopped liver… surprisingly good! Simone’s mom was very proud of me!
Over the next two days and nights, I helped to clear away much of the remaining food. Paul came in Saturday night and finished what I couldn’t. I think they were through their leftovers in record time this year. The family has to remain kosher for at least a few days after Passover, and I think we foiled their plans. They probably had to live off mozza for the rest of the weekend.
