Borderline Fantastic

I only watched a little of this game. Little enough to see the Seattle goal and none of the Union goals. That’s not why I share the highlights with you here. I share them because the fact that the ESPN2 Bottom Line wasn’t cropped out of these highlights. It just looked odd.

Thumbs up for nice, long hightlights in good quality and for allowing them to be embedded. Just take a little more time and get some without the Bottom Line.

As for the MLS. I’m new to paying any attention (and I really haven’t yet, but will because of the Union). My problem is that the best players in the world are playing in a little competition called the World Cup and I haven’t heard anything about this being an issue for MLS teams.

A few weeks ago Evan called to let me know he had purchased a plane ticket to NYC. School would be over, so he was free. He didn’t have any plans for when he arrived. He checked the baseball schedule after booking the ticket and saw that the Phillies were in town on Thursday and the Mets would be there for the weekend.

Phillies? I’m in. I checked with Janos, he was in too. Evan’s sister’s boyfriend John rounded out the group.

I went on to StubHub and got 4 tickets in the very top row of the stadium, in a section where I thought we’d get a good view of everything. I think that goal was accomplished.

There were Phillies fans everywhere. By the end of the game, they were all that was left. The 9th inning took forever and the Phillies put a few more runs on the board, leaving to a slow exodus of the rest of the stadium.

I’d been to the old Yankee Stadium twice. Once when I was about 11 and during the last season because Evan hadn’t been there so we made the trip. The new one certainly doesn’t have the charm of the old one. I feel like they tried to copy how the stadium looked at the end. Meaning they attempted to make the new building look old instead of letting it age. It either will look great in many years or will fall apart very quickly. To me, the biggest improvement is the amount of extra space. The lines for food used to fill the concourses so you couldn’t even walk through. Now there is almost too much space, which is a good thing.

Any points gained by design improvements are lost by that ridiculous restaurant in center field. There is no excuse for the bleacher seats being blocked from seeing the other outfield. TV screens are not enough.

The video screen in center field looks amazing. I’m just not sure why they don’t use it for replays. I saw a few early on, but later in the game, there was nothing. Especially in the 9th when the Yankees left the field and no one could figure out what had happened. When I got home I saw that Ibanez had been hit by the grounder to end the inning. No replay or anything in the stadium to let us know what happened.

On last thing, every seat in the stadium has a warning: “Be alert for bats and/or balls.” Every seat. Even all the way in the upper deck. This picture isn’t even from all the way at the top where we were sitting, yet still, really, really far. No bat was making it’s way up there.

My iPad stand arrived this week. I went with the Twelve South BookArc for iPad. I wanted something that could hold the iPad in either direction. I would have liked one that adjusted the angle but they all looked pretty large. Last night I was finally able to use it how I envisioned it.

The Phillies were between innings so I had on the White Sox/Nats game on MLBNet. On the iPad I had the Gamecast up for the Phillies game in the MLB At Bat app. If I get MLB.tv, I can watch video on the iPad, but I don’t need that just yet, maybe in September.

The stand is exactly what I wanted. I will probably get a Bluetooth Keyboard soon and use the stand for things besides supplementing TV watching.

Is it wrong to assume that most of my female friends have dyed their hair? Not that it’s obvious or bad, I’m usually surprised to find out. I don’t have an eye for those type of things. I feel like it’s much more acceptable for girls. I’d be shocked if any of the guys have (for reasons other than Halloween or a sporting event, they still count, but not so shocked).

This is another QOTD where I ask a question that I haven’t done. I haven’t done everything so that’s a valid category of topics. I’ve never dyed my hair, but I still have thoughts of just doing it for doings sake. I’d go with dark red, but I’m open to suggestions. Not that it’s likely to happen since I’m going to be expected to be somewhat professional in school.

I do remember back in high school when the topic came up a lot. It was 10th grade when everyone was bleaching their hair. All the cool kids were doing it. I remember discussing it in AP Computer Science, as I mentioned, cool kids. My teacher in that class was really cool. I had her for both years of programming. I think she was a new math teacher who volunteered to teach the programming class. So in 9th grade, she was really learning while we were. One day we were discussing bleaching our hair in class. I’m not sure if I was serious or just talking it up because I thought it was ridiculous. Back then, I probably thought it was a good idea. The teacher came by and heard us talking about it and flipped out. She argued against it saying I would look terrible and that my hair was fine the way it was. I remember this really upsetting her the rest of class. I may have even asked her a question later in class and she was asking me to make sure I wasn’t seriously considering it. I didn’t really think about it after that, except to wonder, would it really be that upsettingly bad?

I should probably go with something that came out today, but I haven’t listened to anything yet. I bought The Gaslight Anthem and am tempted by The Ready Set. Instead, I caught a live version of All Time Low’s Coffee Shop Soundtrack. I found the video on YouTube and you have to love it for its ability to look like it was made in 1985.

During the premiere, Craig Robinson said something about someone having to wait until Season 8. I had to stop and think, have there really been 6 seasons already? I guess it’s possible, but still seems crazy. I actually wrote about it around this time for Season 4.

I’m not a huge reality show watcher. At least that’s what I tell people, to seem like less of a loser. Sort of like people who say, ‘Oh, I don’t have a TV.’ Those people think they are cool by not having a TV. I hate those people. But it’s similar. Off the top of my head I only watch Real World and Celebrity Rehab. I think that’s it, but I will not be surprised to be proven wrong. When the summer comes along, I’m on board for LCS.

Season 1 will always be my favorite. They all had to live in a house and you got to see how horrible comedians are to live with. I loved every second they spent in that house. They were hilarious and fought with each other constantly. The only problem with Season 1 was that the winner wasn’t funny.

I didn’t have a ton of hope for Season 7. Craig Robinson is the new host. While I love him on The Office, he has never struck me as an outstanding stand-up. Although, Bill Bellamy hosted for two seasons, so I can overlook the host.

The premiere was outstanding and it was obvious why: the judges. I’ve complained in the past about the judges they’ve picked. For the 4th season, it was the bookers for The Tonight Show, who were, no surprise, terrible. They’ve gone with comics in the past, sometimes with different ones in each city (I hope they don’t change for next week), but no group ever clicked like this one.

The judges are Andy Kindler, Natasha Leggero, and Greg Giraldo. Just Giraldo and I was in. I’ve seen Kindler a lot on Letterman. I’d only ever heard Leggero on Doug Benson’s podcast (I didn’t find a site for the podcast, so I’ll link to his MySpace). All three were equally excellent as judges. Why? Because I always agreed with them. Even when they’d laugh hysterically at something really stupid, I was right there with them. I had to agree with those that were just stupid funny, weren’t worthy of moving on. I was really hooked when at the performance, when there is a crowd, some of the jokes left the audience silent. Yet at the judges table, they were cracking up. It helps that they have the judges mic’d during those performances. I know immediately that Natasha Leggero agrees with me.

As for Craig Robinson, I’m curious to see him perform when they get to the competition part. He is so quiet. The people trying out with a lot of energy were just running all around him in his interviews after their auditions.

I won’t be waiting 6 days to watch episode 2, like I did the premiere.

I spent some time today looking for a new laptop/messenger bag for school in a few months. Now, every ad on BF is for the bag I am leaning toward. They sure don’t want me to get away without buying.

This is the one I’ve got my eye on, it’s a Timbuk2 D-Lux Messenger Bag with Racing Stripe. Yea that’s the full name. I don’t really need a racing stripe. It’s not a race, I walk plenty fast. Anyway, it looks like this …

… I’m just not sure how I feel about the purple logo.

I love Friday Night Lights. Despite the fact that the show has so many holes in the plot and starts off slowly every season (except for the 1st). The past two episodes have been incredible. I won’t get in to any spoilers because I don’t have much to add and I only know a handful of people who watch the show.

This clip won’t be up for more than a few weeks I guess, but it’s worth it as a reminder of why I love the show. Remember, the show is about football, right? I knew Tim’s line about halfway through Becky’s rambling. But I loved Becky’s rambling and his response. So watch.

Megan came down from NYC to go see Conan with me. When tickets went on sale a few months ago, I didn’t know what to do. The tour was announced and tickets went on sale at the same time. I didn’t have time to plan. I think it’s safe to say Megan is the biggest Conan fan I know, but with her in NYC and the show on a weeknight, fingers were crossed that it would all work out. Everything did, and it was an awesome show.

First, the opening act. I forget his name and I really don’t want to look it up except to warn you. I was just confused for the first half because I couldn’t figure out what he was doing. I continued to be confused for the second half because I figured out he had some talent, but he wasn’t making the best use of it, in my opinion. It was some sort of hip-hop comedy. Lots of singing, but none of it was all that funny. But he sure could sing and do all sorts of things with his voice and he could at least play piano. So that was the talented part. Just didn’t make sense, and did not fit with the Conan audience. Although peopled seemed to enjoy it, so maybe it just didn’t fit with this pair of Conan audience members.

To get the weak points out of the way, in the middle of the show, Conan had one of his writers come out to do some stand up. He was on The Tonight Show a couple of times and we had never found him all that funny. His routine consisted of complaining about how black comedians make jokes about race and how he didn’t do that, but then went on to tell example jokes for 5 minutes. Quite a ploy to tell those easy jokes and pretend to not like them at the same time.

Now the show. It opened with just the band going crazy. I’d go to a show of just the band. They were that much fun. La Bamba was singing and dancing, it was so strange since I’m used to the moron he’d been portrayed to be on the show. Going in to the theater someone was handing out fliers for a Max Weinberg Big Band show coming up in Philly. Max wasn’t on this tour but after seeing the excitement of this band it seems like something worth checking out. Not sure it would be a much fun as the rest of Conan’s band.

Conan was just great. He told some stories, sang some songs, did some bits from the shows. I’d imagine people would just want to see something more similar to his show. Conan isn’t a singer, so why did we want to see him sing songs? And that’s the crazy thing. I still wanted to see him do all that stuff. He was having fun. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone have that much fun doing a show. At the end he ran through the crowd, hugging people, jumping up and down. It was hilarious, entertaining, a great show.

Now, the special guests. I was kind of worried that Philly wouldn’t get anyone special. I figured they’d bring them out early on, so I was a little disappointed thinking no one was going to show up. Then he started to introduce a musical guest. He said Phish and I knew it was going to be Trey Anastasio. He came out in a Briere jersey. Conan came out at the start in a Flyers jersey. I thought that was kind of odd, since he should be a Bruins fan. But Trey, for whatever reason, loves the Flyers. And for whatever reason, I know that. (I looked it up and he’s from Jersey, for some reason I thought he was from Maine.) He played a song and I was reminded how awesome Phish is. Then, of course, he jammed for a little longer than I wanted him too, and I remembered why I don’t always love Phish.

I figured that was it. Later in the show he brought out the Walker, Texas Ranger lever for a few Walker clips. He said he needed a little help and had another guest. Tina Fey! The place went nuts. You hear the phrase jumping out of your seat, but it’s said more often than you actually see it happen. Megan actually jumped out of her seat. We are both huge Tina Fey fans. I didn’t even consider she might be around. She is from Upper Darby, and that’s where the theater was. Sadly, she didn’t do much more than pull the lever for a few more amazing Walker clips. I guess she really doesn’t do stand-up style comedy, but I’m sure she would have been great. She could have come up with some material on the train. Doesn’t really matter, Tina can do no wrong.

That’s the show. What I took away from it was fun. Everyone involved was just having a blast. At one point, the band belted out Seven Nation Army, no lyrics, so loud, the speakers were blowing me back in my seat. There was no reason for it, except it was awesome. Is there a better reason? Usually I go to these shows and try and figure out what parts I could do for my future stage career. This one I realized, no matter what, if you are talented, just have fun, and people will love you.

I wanted to mention where we went to dinner. We went to the Sang Kee Noodle House in University City. I don’t mention it because the food was especially great. Some of it was good, some of it was eh. The reason I want to point it out is that the web site said that they have a Karaoke Room for $30/hr with tons of songs in a variety of different languages. I completely forgot about it while we were there. I was kind of curious what it looked like.

I only took a few pictures when Tina Fey came out.

I used to when I first started driving, when I was paying with cash. As credit card payment became standard shortly after that, I stopped worrying about topping off. No real reason, I never thought about it. While I was getting gas this weekend there was a sign above the pump warning of the dangers of topping off. It looked like some sort of PSA campaign. It warned that topping off was a waste of gas and money and harmed the environment. I don’t know how the system works, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. I always figured that as long as there wasn’t gas overflowing, it was in the tank and would be used eventually. I don’t think someone would design a system where excess gas will just leak out.