Life Aint Nuthin'...

Tax day's coming, are you ready?! As a person who gets refunds, I did my taxes by February 15th and already spent my refund. But good luck to you late filers, without you who would local soft-journalists poll on tax day pulling up to local post offices. I mean, these people, all they have left is hanging out at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving.

Opening Day 2005

Last Sunday marked opening day of the Major League Baseball season, and ALREADY the Yankees and Red Sox have already played each other four times, with two more games tomorrow and Thursday. I mean, I know it's the biggest rivalry in baseball, but they're really beating us over the head with it.

On the flip side, playing in near obscurity, is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. What can you really say about the D-Rays? They lost their first two games to the Toronto Blue Jays. They've made a slight comeback and are sitting at .500 (as I write this, but there's a game in progress where they've already given up a 3-1 lead), but the bad press continued for Tampa Bay's home team. First, the attendance numbers from the opening game was just over 26,000, which was a new low. The next two games were progressively worse, both registering under 10,000. Total attendance for the opening series three-game series against the Jays was just under 44,000... Meaning that of the 13 home openers last Sunday-Tuesday, seven of them drew more in one game than the D-Rays drew in three. And of the six that didn't, at least three of those couldn't (San Francisco, Cincinnati, and the Chicago White Sox) as those stadiums seat less than 44,000. I accidentally deleted my list, but the only place that didn't beat the Rays on opening day but could have were the Angels, and they were just a couple hundred short. Needless to say, the Rays aren't starting the season off on the right foot. Then, the clincher was D-Rays owner Vince Naimoli barring a Mets scout permanently from Tropicana Field for using his private restroom during a game. Naimoli has done a lot of good for the community; a side story listed how he's going to cover the tuition for the two children of a sportswriter who recently passed away and how he contributed to a fund to purchase a wheelchair-accessible van for a disabled Tropicana Field employee. But he's got to learn that it's the stupid shit like this that adds to his brutish reputation.

I did have the opportunity this weekend to catch a ballgame, but instead of the train wreck that is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays I decided to take in a game for the minor league Clearwater Threshers. It's sad that I'd rather drive an extra fifteen minutes to watch a Class A team than our local professional team. Not just that, tickets to the Threshers game were $6 while the D-Rays were selling their upper deck tickets for $5. But there's just something to be said for the game experience at a minor league game that you just don't get from the big leagues (or The Trop at least). I don't know what it is; maybe it comes from growing up in a small town that also had a Class A team (Daytona Beach; which during my lifetime has been home to the Astros, Islanders, and Admirals and is now home to the Daytona Cubs). Whatever it is, I had a great time even though I left a little early to catch a movie (more on that in a minute), and I encourage anyone with a local minor league team to check them out some time this season. I'm sure you'll have fun.

Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!

Last week was the first full week of Jerry Springer's radio show on the national Air America Network. With my Sirius Satellite Radio at my desk, I was able to listen to most of his shows and so far I've enjoyed it. In the week leading up to it, I don't know if it was sour grapes, but the staff of Air America's other radio shows including Unfiltered which it replaced were less than amped for the arrival of Springer. But, ironically, while most of Air America's shows offer politics with a heaping helping of humor it's Springer's show which is the most serious and formal. Each edition starts with him bringing up a topic and discussing it for a half-hour; the second half-hour normally includes an interview with someone knowledgable of the day's topic, while the last two hours is a typical call-in show format regarding that topic.

Jerry's usually extremely passionate about the issues at hand, and you can tell that he truly cares about each topic. He ranted for nearly an hour on the Senate GOP's determination to get the president's judicial appointments through, which may include changing the Senate's approval process and also on John Bolton's nomination as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations even though he often decries that same body. In each case, he makes an informed argument and is willing to discuss the issues with those of differing viewpoints who call into the show. While he doesn't present a balanced argument (I've never heard one of his guests arguing for the other side of a position), he does at least present the case.

All in all, I think his show is good. While I like Air America's humor more than its politics (and I'm as liberal as anyone), I think it's good that they're airing a show with more of a serious discussion. And, lets face it, adding a big name, even if it's Jerry Springer, will be good for the long-run of the Air America Network. As stated in the HBO documentary on the progressive talk show network, liberal talk is now one of the fastest growing radio formats in the U.S. And, for Jerry, it's good to see that he's back in the arena which he loves the most. Part of the draw, at least for me, to his show is just that he's so sarcastic because you can tell he doesn't really care and is totally doing it for the paycheck. I know that, in addition, he's looking at a potential run towards a Senate seat in the state of Ohio so I wish him the best of luck.

Random Thoughts

• Nothing like watching Office Space on Comedy Central Sunday night to sap any desire you have of going to work the next day. Luckily, I had some things to take care of on Monday that gave me a good excuse to take a personal day yesterday. But god, that's such a great movie!
  
• Movie Review: Fever Pitch (3 out of 5 Owls). This is the movie that I left the game early for, so I had a baseball filled day on Sunday. What can I say, it's just a romantic comedyin the line of all of the others. Boy meets girl, everything's going great, then there's some struggle, love overcomes all, the end. The main reason why I wanted to check it out is that I'm a huge fan of Fever Pitch author Nick Hornsby. The book is a personal memoir of his addiction to the British soccer club Arsenal (which I now follow because of him), so this adaptation as well as a previous UK film borrow fairly liberally from his story. Pretty much, the two films are romantic comedies while the book is more of a diary which skims over how his devotion to soccer affected his love life. Anyways, for a guy, the movie's pretty much something you'd take a date to unless you're a Red Sox fan who wants to relive their run to the World Series last year (that's right, I don't know if anyone has heard but the Red Sox won the World Series last year). Enough of the romantic comedy element for the ladies, enough baseball action for the guys. Drew Barrymore's cute enough to give this movie three owls by itself (especially in a scene where her and her galpal's are in a spinning class), and that's pretty much how it got this score. Nothing really much more to say, it's just the standard formula with a baseball twist.
  
• Girl I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy: Kimee Balmilero. I almost didn't have one for this week, but I took the day off yesterday and was flipping channels and ran across the kids' show Hi-5 on Discovery Kids and came across this little cutie. While I wasn't a big fan of the songs they sang, she was cute enough to keep me tuned into the show for the whole half-hour. So, this little Hawaiian cutie, as usual I'm way too lazy to put any effort into stalking anyone... But, if you want to stalk me, feel free to contact me through AOwL.com.
  

Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Well, after I wrote in a posting a couple of days ago that Yahoo! should have something along the same lines as MySpace or Friendster... Well, I found out that they're testing one now. See, I knew my corporate overlords would hook me up.

360.yahoo.com

Play Ball!

Tonight's Yankees-Red Sox game starts the 30-month epic which is the baseball regular season (and game 1 of 624 between Boston and New York that will be aired on national television). In the meantime, the 0-0 Devil Rays are already out of playoff contention and asking fans to be patient for the new crop of players that are just shy of making it to the majors.

Movie Review - Sin City (4 out of 5 Owls)

As mentioned in yesterday's post, I got a chance to see Frank Miller's Sin City yesterday, and I was impressed. I'm not a big fan of the "new style" of film making against a blue-screen where backgrounds and sets are added digitally. To me, it gives the films the affect of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, real actors walking around in the middle of Toontown. You're just waiting for the anvil to fall on Bob Hoskins' head. The Star Wars prequels are the best example of this, as you almost long for the days of the cheesy models against the black backdrop because they look more realistic than the computer generated effects. Obviously though, when you have a film where you're supposed to almost have a comic book (or "graphic novel") look, you couldn't ask for a more fitting medium.

With hardcore violence which can make Kill Bill look like an episode of Sesame Street, I will have to retract my statement that Sin City may be able to knockoff the final Star Wars prequel in the same way that Spider-Man knocked off Episode II three years ago. The content's not really going to lend itself to repeated viewings by a large audience, and while the group in front of me included a tiny baby, it's not a movie that you'll bring the younger set to. The movie focuses on three loosely related storylines; a cop on his final assignment to rescue a kidnapped little girl, a vigilante looking to avenge the death of his one true love (who happened to be a hooker he met the night before), and a man looking to stave off an inner-city war between the police and a band of hookers. The stories and acting probably won't be what brings the crowds, as the the action is disjointed and the characters seem to be speaking as if they're reading the comic book aloud. But, if you're a fan of Quentin Tarantino (who directed a scene in this movie for his old pal Robert Rodriguez) or the darker first two Batman movies, you would definitely enjoy the trip to Basin City. As for me, I'm back to dreaming of Jessica Alba in those chaps and laso. Whew!

It's Official... I Miss the NHL

Well, it took me until the start of April, as we should be nearing the Stanley Cup playoffs where it finally hit me... I miss hockey. Now, I've been a hockey fan since I was a kid but it has always been second fiddle behind basketball. Thus, I've been spending this winter enjoying the hot-and-cold streaks of my beloved Orlando Magic and supplementing it with college hockey on CSTV, indoor lacrosse on Altitude Sports, and arena football on NBC.

But this was supposed to be a big year for my hockey teams. The Leafs had stockpiled talent like a new bride (something old, something new, well hopefully nothing borrowed, but definitely something blue) and the local Tampa Bay Lightning were the defending Stanley Cup champions. I mean, I know that things will pretty much be the same when they return to the ice next year (yes, I think that the parties will come to their senses at some point this summer and work out a deal), but after you miss a year WHO REALLY CARES?! I've discovered during this missed season that I am a big hockey fan, but that my life has gone on without it.

Random Thoughts

• Weezer has started the push for their new CD Make Believe (coming out May 10th) by releasing their first single, "Beverly Hills." You can get to the video from their website. I love how they still write and sing songs about being losers and nerds back in the day, when you know they're filthy rich and are knee-deep in women... Even though there's a member or two who may not be into that (which is cool). Also kind of sad that a video shot with playmates at the Playboy Mansion, and the hottest one appears to be one of the Weezer fans (towards the end of the video in the yellow shirt and black jacket).
• OK, a lot is being made in the tabloids about Britney Spears getting fat. But I can't believe that its her hips that people are looking at in these pictures. Good lordy, if that prick Kevin's calling her fat because of those babies he deserves an ass kicking worse than the one he already deserves for hooking up with her in the first place.
  
• "Woman I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy" This week, I'm going back to one of my favorite groups to choose from, professional cheerleaders. I've selected Orlando Predator cheerleader Susan. Following arena league games, they allow fans to mess around on the field and I was playing a little catch with my brother this goddess comes out and... Well was kind of distracting. And just her "Hey, I'm being paid to be flirty with guys so they'll come back next game" smile was enough to reel me in. As always Susan, I'm too lazy to stalk anybody, but if you'd like to stalk me feel free to contact me via AOwL.com.
  

Pope Watch 2005

Well folks, another one of my mother's childhood hopes for her son is about to go down the drain. My mother always hoped for me to become the eventual pope. I guess the fact that being an Atheist at the time of the next papal election would pretty much exclude me from the runnings. Guess I'll just have to continue my quest to be Emperor of the World.

Netscape Comeback?

Last weekend I downloaded the newest Beta version of the Netscape browser. I'm one of the types of people who likes to reminisce about the early days of the Internet, when Netscape was king and Infoseek was the best search engine. But, in the current Internet era, Infoseek is a relic of a bygone era and Netscape is an also-ran behind the mighty Internet Explorer and the up-and-coming Firefox.

Really, if you're already a Firefox user like me, then you'll pretty much be familiar with Netscape 8.0, as it's just a skin over the current Firefox 1.0 with a few additional features. As you may know, Firefox was originally developed by a few disenfranchised Netscape programmers who disliked what their parent company AOL was doing with their beloved browser (and their adoption of the "evil empire's" Internet Explorer software for the newer AOL releases).

The new Netscape browser utilizes some of the better features of Firefox (tabbed browsing is going to have to be a requirement in all future browser releases), combining them with some cool features from the Time Warner media empire (scrolling news stories and weather reports), and of course, the dreaded synergy where you drag down a good product by grouping it with your "lesser" offerings (like the built-in search engine, which on Firefox you may choose from several providers, only allows for the crummy Netscape search). All-in-all, it's a prettier version of Firefox, but not an improvement on it. The benefit is that, I believe, this will be the start of a new generation of private development on Firefox's capabilities. Imagine Disney-owned ESPN developing a sports themed browser which will give you easier access to sports scores and fantasy stats, or for Yahoo! geeks like me who can have a browser built around what we use it for.

Random Thoughts

I'm getting ready to go see my future wife-to-be Jessica Alba in Sin City, so I'm going to wrap it up early today. But I'll probably be back later today or tomorrow with a full post. But there's just one other thing that I had to comment on.

• Google announced that their upcoming G-Mail is going to allow for 2 gigabytes of e-mail space for their users. 2 f'in gigs! Just a tad bit excessive. With my work e-mail, I keep many of my important e-mails, and I'm barely up to a quarter-meg. Let alone anywhere near the gig that Google offered and Yahoo! Mail is going to offer in the near future. And do you think this is all just a tricky scheme by Google to get their competitors to match their unprecedented space while they keep their G-Mail in "testing." I believe I saw them taking new requests for about a day or two a couple of weeks ago, but have once again shut off G-Mail to new users. Pretty sneaky, sis.

Today's post was for last week's "Woman I'd Stalk If I Weren't So Lazy," Bambi Francisco. See, I can write about tech stuff, too... We have so much in common. Anyways fellow minions, they'll be more to come soon (hopefully!).