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My Fermina Daza

I have been hitting the Refresh button for the past 15 minutes on my Hotmail Inbox just for another glimpse of that True.com advertisement girl whom I fell in love with so suddenly, after my Junk mail was submitted but before the confirmation page had time to load. Like so many great loves, was it too late or just not early enough? I shall continue Refreshing for her until the end of time.

update: nearly an hour and countless refreshes later I am beginning to think she was never more than a dream..

update: blam-o

My only legal protection from the gross copyright infringement is the same and only excuse that has always been good enough, I did it for love.

what's another word for Pirate Treasure

I got a spam email trying to sell me a watch this morning. I had to mark it as junk but I did so only reluctantly, as my learning algorithms are now unfortunately trained to filter emails with the awesome words "Harley Davidson Swag"

Walk off single

Let me just tell you about my softball game tonight. So first off, I get off the train right across the street from Lettermans studio which is always fun to see. I see the Hello Deli and I smile. And so I walk in front of it and there is a guy dressed as superman on the sidewalk being filmed for something. It’s pretty late, like 8:30, so its not for Dave’s show. At least not for today, as he had already taped. So I figure it must just be coincidence that he’s filming there. But then I see stagehand Pat Farmer standing there watching and so now I’m pretty sure it was for letterman. I’ll be interested to see tomorrows show.

Anyway, so I’m not sure if I’d ever played at this field before but as I’m walking, I walk by the studio where they film the Colbert Report and a Sony Music Studio (with all sorts of black sedans idling out front with drivers reading books behind the wheels) and I do remember walking by these places before, so I have played here. And then I see the field and I remember it. And I remember the game I played there because it was probably the best softball game I’d ever played. I remember going 4-4 at the plate and just having an awesome day in the field. And then I think about the major leagues and how its surprising, when you look at the stats, how some guys just play better in some parks and some guys play worse in some. I’d like to choke that up to coincidence but when you see these stats, you know it can’t be. So I hope I have another good game on this field, so as to keep the trend going.

And I do. Not a spectacular game, but I’m 2-4 at the plate so far and the only ball hit to me in centerfield, of course, I caught. So it’s a good game. We’re tied 6-6 at the end of 7 innings which is the end of regulation. Mind you, we have not yet won a game this season. The rule is to play extra innings only if time permits and as it was already 10:30 and nobody was playing after us, time permitted. So top of 8, we’re in the field, and of course, we give up a run. But its only one. Okay. 7-6 them, going into the bottom of the inning. Now, my hitting has been suspect this season. I’m tending to pop a lot of balls up to the pitcher or short stop. Today was good; my first at bat was a solid line drive single to the outfield. The next at bat was a ground ball that found a hole on the left side of the infield for another hit. My third at bat was one of them pop-ups and I feel it all happening again. I think too much about the swing and just pop it up. My fourth at bat was a ground ball to the shortstop and I was out. That last out I made, by the way, was the third out in the bottom of the 6th inning with a runner on third. If I had gotten him in, who knows, maybe we win in 7. I was pretty pissed at myself. Not to mention my confidence at the plate was low now. Anyway, so bottom of 8, the first person up for us grounds out. One out. The next person, Beth, gets a hit, but she’s a very very slow runner and now she’s on first base as our tying run. Next guy up, Stu, hits a single and if Beth had any speed at all, she’d get to third on his hit, but as it was, she was still only on second. The next girl up flies out to right field, but she advances both the runners. Two outs now, Beth, the tying run, on third, Stu, the winning run, on second and first base is open. Glenn is hitting and I’m on deck. I’m really really really really hoping Glen gets a nice solid hit, drives in two runs, we win the game. My confidence in hitting is so low, not to mention the pressure I’d be under, I really don’t want to be in the situation where its me or we lose.... So don’t you know it. Glenn walks. I’m up. Bases loaded. Bottom of the last inning down by a run, two outs. DAMMIT. Alright. I go up there, take a few practice cuts and step in. Ball one. Alright. I’m thinking, hey, maybe he’ll walk in the tying run and get me out of this situation. But then I realize that Lainie is hitting behind me and I love her to pieces, but she can’t hit. So it’s on me if we want to win. I step back into the box for my next pitch. Called strike. That’s fine. 1-1 count. I step out of the box, take a deep breath and a cut, and step back in. Ball 2. 2-1. I consider my options and my ability to foul off bad pitches and even though I can’t, I decide I’m not going to take the bat off my shoulder unless I have two strikes against me. Very NL pitcher-esque... Step into the box, next pitch, ball 3. 3-1. This one was a close pitch. They judge balls and strikes in this league by where the pitch lands and everybody on the field thought this was a strike except for me, the catcher and the ump because we were the only three who saw where the ball actually landed. Fine. 3-1. I step back in hoping for an obvious ball. Instead, I get what looks like the best pitch I’ve seen all night. Strike 2. Full count. At this point, the pitcher actually starts talking shit to me. “That’s the best pitch you’re gonna get kid. What are you lookin for? You ain’t gonna get nothin like that again, kid.” I’m pretty nervous and now I’ve got two strikes against me, so this is it. I don’t say anything back to the pitcher because the last thing I need right now is to lose focus. Plus, I’m pretty sure that I’m going to strike out swinging, or worse, looking, and I don’t want to be the guy who can’t back his shit up. So. 3-2 count. I knock the dirt off my cleats with my bat, step into the box with my right foot, find my placement by touching the end of the bat about 6 inches behind the plate and 3 inches inside. With my left hand, I pull up the sleeve on my right shoulder a little bit, and finally step in with my left foot. Take a cut with the bat and then put it on my shoulder. I’m ready and so I nod to the pitcher. I’m really really hoping for an obvious ball again. Lets just tie the game, lainie will come up and dribble a ball back to the pitcher and we’ll all go home happy with a tie. But what I get instead is an even better pitch than the last one. Kinda flat (which is against the rules of the league, but much easier to hit, in my opinion) and a little outside, right where I like it. I like ‘em outside because I like to be able to fully extend on my swing. When I get jammed, I get under the ball and pop it up. So somehow, someway, I put a good swing on the pitch (my eyes were closed) and drove the ball to right center field. A perfect line drive single, scoring two runs and winning the game. After I touched first, officially ending the game, I just got down on my knees, completely relieved that I didn’t fuck up.

And then walking back to the train station later on, I realized that maybe there really is something to the idea that some people really do just play better on certain fields.

Happy Beer Day

San Francisco has Pride this weekend, and one of the things I am most proud of also has a reason to celebrate. Today is the 9th annual anniversary of Beer Day. Happy Beer Day everybody, here is a reminder of some of the things that I think make you awesome.

Gomez are your friends

So the doors to the show didn’t open till 7 and there was an opening singer girl, so I was content to get there at about 8:30. If I go home after work though, figure I’m not going to get home until 6 and then to be back in midtown by 8:30, I gotta leave my apartment by like 7:15ish... So I decided to just go to a bar and drink. I called up some people I work with to see if they wanted to get some food with me thus allowing me to charge the company for the meal and drinks. They did. So there were 4 of us from about 5:30 till 8 drinking and having dinner. I drank, I think, 6 beers there. Then I went to the show and started to get very excited. Had another couple before the show started and then they have this guy walking around selling beers on ice during the show. I had 13 beers yesterday from 5:30 until sometime in the middle of the show, probably around 10:30. You’ll need to know this later.

So the show was awesome. You know, I’ve only been a fan of theirs for about 4 months now, but I am intimately familiar with all of their songs. I know them all. So they started the show by playing two of my favorite songs which were just fucking awesome. There are 6 guys in the band and they bring a lot of energy to the show and they recreate their music really really well. I’ve been to more than a few concerts where you walk out thinking that the band can’t really play their own songs. But damn.... Gomez can. And how. As you’re neither a fan of theirs nor familiar with their music, I won’t go into any specifics about any of the songs, but it was just fucking awesome. I was surprised when they played their two current singles off the new album relatively early in the show. I was then wondering what would be their last two or three songs. The last song was what I figured it would be; their most commercially popular song and it certainly does translate well to a live performance. They made some changes and shit to some of their songs to give you something you weren’t expecting and frankly, this is very much what turned me on to this band in the first place. You’re listening to a song and you think it’s going to go one way, because most songs you ever hear anymore follow similar blueprints, but Gomez always surprises you and you’re listening and you’re just floored by it. You really have to hear an album of theirs to get what I’m saying but my larger point is that they’ve done it again. Their live show surprises you with every song all over again. And I’m just standing there listening to them and thinking, Goddamn, this is a phenomenal band.

They started playing at about 9:45 and finished at about 11:30 and I’m all sorts of drunk. And then I had to walk back to the train. The thing you gotta realize about the nyc subway system is that if you’re not riding it during normal hours (weekdays 6am-10pm) then it takes FOREVER to get anywhere. So I got to the train station by about 11:45 and by the time I waited for the train and rode local all the way to the stop before mine (long story) and then walked the 20 minutes home, it was 1:30 in the morning. I felt disgusting so I had to take a shower. Now its 2:00 and I’m not drunk anymore, but I certainly knew, by how I felt, that I had drank 13 beers in the last few hours. Also, I had something going on at work this morning wherein I needed to be here at 5:30am. I didn’t have to do anything, but I did need to be here that early. Again, because the subway system sucks during off hours, I had to leave extra time to be here on time. I decided that if I left at 4:15, I should be here by 5:30. I had to wake up at 3:45, at the latest, to be leave by 4:15. So figure, I’ve got an hour and 45 minutes. Do I go to sleep? If I go to sleep, I’m going to ‘pass out’ and will I be able to wake up from a pass out in less than 2 hours? The other option is to just stay awake, but I’ve got such a headache from having been drunk and after the shower I’m all ready to crash, so I do. And somehow I do manage to wake up and drag my ass here and I’m here at 5:25. And now... Here I am. Its unimaginable how shitty and tired I feel. But I’m young. And I’ll tell you... Gomez were worth it. One of my top... Maybe 3 concerts ever.

Oh, and one more thing. Before Gomez took the stage, some local DJ who I don’t know came out to introduce the band and to tell us that this show would be broadcast live on the radio and over the internet on the stations website. Wow. That’s phenomenal because I’ll most likely be able to find an archive version of the show somewhere on the internet. If its of good enough quality, and I’m sure it will be, I can turn it into an mp3, maybe even break it up into individual songs, and then I’ve got a recording of the awesome Gomez show I was at. I’m very excited. The only problem will be finding it on the interent, and I already have a few leads.

ride to work this morning

I ride my bike to work every morning and at first it upset me when cab drivers swung quickly into my lane or slammed on their brakes to grab a fare. For most of the way I ride there is a special lane that only MUNI buses, cabs, bicycles and people turning right are allowed to go in. Pretty soon I realized that we're all supposed to share that lane and it's my responsibility to not be going so fast that i can't stop safely.
Today I was stopped at the Stockton St. light on Post Street and in the right-turn only lane was a young gentleman in a late 90s 3-series BMW. He is wearing a shiny black shirt with red and pink stripes and has some fancy tie on. The windows are rolled down so I hear him complaining about traffic (which is the same as it always is, crappy). Finally he says "fuck it" and runs the red light, swerving into the next lane to do so. The light turned green literally 3 seconds later and so we all caught up with him at the next red light. I pulled up next to him on my 10-speed and looked over. Before I could even think of what I wanted to say he said, "Don' say anything. Not a word, I'll stomp you."
I'm not a tough guy but I think that fighting is cool, not to mention that he's in his car with a girl is obviously late for something, so rationally I'm not really worried about whether he will get out of his car and take the time to stomp me. But, I didn't say what I wanted to say, which was "you're a real asshole", I just said, "Nice shirt." and he drove off "I'll fuckin stomp on you"

I passed him at the next light, and really wanted to stop and say something like, "Red light, if you don't plan on running this one there's probably enough time to stomp me', but I'm a nansy-pansy

Happy Beer Day Eve Eve.

pandora today

Sirius

Can I just go ahead here and say my two cents regarding Sirius Satellite Radio? I've had it for about six months now, ever since Howard Stern moved over. It really is one of my favorite things day in and day out, and I actually only listen to two channels regularly. It's kind of the equivalent of having cable at work. The entertainment is phenominal. I really can't say enough about it, and I don't understand people who are reluctant to get it. The only valid reason to hesitate is they concern that its short lived and won't last. Satellite radio, that is. But an informed consumer would know that, in fact, it is not a valid concern. Sirius has recently spent $260 million to launch a new satellite to expand and increase coverage. They're signing all sorts of new exciting entertainment deals. NASCAR is coming to Sirius next season (now if they'd only get baseball there would be absolutely no way XM could stay in business). Their subscriptions are steadily increasing and are above and beyond all predictions and expectations. Satellite radio, and Sirius in particular, is not going anywhere.

It cost me 60 bucks for the receiver and 13 dollars a month.

I have my own office away from the sensative ears of anybody else who may be in my facility at any time. I feel like this is necessary because I love love love listening to Howard Stern everyday. I've been listening to Stern since high school - about 8 years - and I've never heard a radio show that has entertained me an eighth of the way he does now. It's quite ridiculous actually. I plan my work so as to do all my paper and desk work in the morning and anything that requires me being away from my desk in the afternoon. I'm tied to the radio. In fact, I get annoyed when I have to make phone calls because I have to turn down the radio and miss a few minutes. Fortunately, Howards show is replayed all day on one of his channels. He has two.

I could write for a long time about how much I love Sirius, but I won't. I suggest you all go out and buy it.

Playboy Magazine

I was in the process of writing a post on not being excited about playboy magazine, but upon learning that Vida Guerra will be featured in the next issue I have stopped being not excited about playboy magazine…..for this month at least. Continue to read though because I think I have some decent arguments.....

I recently received a Playboy subscription for my birthday and it just isn’t doing it for me. I mean I really don’t feel the urge to pick it up – neither for the girls nor for the articles. The other day I was wishing that I had received Newsweek or Time instead. Now I’m trying to figure out the reason(s) for this. Has the combination of my laptop and high-speed internet made the world of online porn so widely accessible that I've become desensitized to something as simple as topless girls in the glossy pages of a magazine? I go to the World Wide Web for pretty much all of my news so why wouldn’t I go to it for my porn? But does getting better porn (dirtier and in video format) on the internet tell the whole story? I don’t think I can’t discount the magazine porn medium just yet because the pictorials of the girls in FHM and Maxim are totally hot, and the girls aren’t even naked. Some of the girls whose recent FHM or Maxim spreads I enjoyed include: Vida Guerra; Autumns Reeser (Taylor from the O.C.); the FSU Cowgirls; Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars of Veronica Mars); Jenny McCarthy; Vida Guerra; Anna Benson; and Eva Longoria among many others.

So why are the Playboy pictures not as hot? For one thing, there’s definitely merit to the whole air-brushed thing – it may hide stretch marks and other blemishes, but it makes their boobs look like flesh-colored cumulus clouds floating around the general area of their chest. Their whole bodies look like that – it makes me think that I would lose my hand inside their thighs if I were to try to touch them. That’s just not hot.

Also, notice anything about the list of girls I just rattled off? They’re all minor celebrities who orbit my pop culture universe. While Ms. April is better looking than the average girl from the street, she still is just some girl from the street. She may even look better than some of the aforementioned girls, but she’s not on TV, so I kind of don’t care. Playboy does feature celebrities and I would be pretty excited if someone important enough to me were to pose, but that hasn’t happened quite yet. So far I’ve gotten the chick from the Go Daddy commercials, Willa Ford (D-level Brittney Spears and Christina Aguleira rip-off), and some chick from Reno 911. I’ll have to side w/ Maxim and FHM on this one.

As for the feel of the magazine – I think it’s too sophisticated. Some of the subject matter covered includes: Religion vs. Science; Global Warming; Vaginal Cosmetic Surgery, and the Psychopathology of War. It’s not that I’m not interested in these things; it’s just that I can’t reconcile reading a behind-the-scenes profile of Dick Cheney and looking at nude women in the same magazine. “I’ll take politics for the main course with an order of titties on the side!” It’s one or the other for me. But after reading an article on the Best Sitcom Neighbors in Maxim I fully expect to see a bikini-clad babe dry humping a Mustang on the next page. Maybe I’m just not mature enough to read Playboy - maybe you’ll just tell me that I’m and idiot and that titties are titties and to stop being so whiney.

Complete set

I've posted all of my pictures from Australia. Check them out in the gallery, and enjoy.

It's all over

So Ann did jump out of the plane this morning. We're all very proud of her. Skydiving over Cairns was pretty awesome, as expected, albeit an activity that doesn't take much time. Again, I have no pictures from it. But 14,000 feet is pretty freakin high up there and from there, the view over the area is pretty amazing. You can see two World Heritage Foundation landmarks, which is amazing in and of itself that they exist within a short drive of each other; the Great Barrier Reef and the Australian tropical rain forest. Not to mention the rivers and the fields of sugar cane and banana trees and everything else. And then you jump - or more accurately - fall out of the plane and everything starts hurtling towards you at an ungodly speed. And then a minute later (a very long minute) your parachute opens and you realize you won't die. At least not immediately. So that was fun.

We fly home tomorrow. Early tomorrow. Our transport is picking us up at 4:45am (which is early regardless of what continent you're on) for a 7am flight. We fly to Sydney to L.A. to New York (and my sister then to Rochester). So we take off at 7am on Sunday June 4 and land no sooner than 25 hours later in New York at 5:20pm Sunday June 4. It's a good thing too because I've been feeling about a day older than I actually am the entire time I've been here.

All in all, I am relieved to be leaving Australia alive and wholly in one piece. However, I have sustained some impairments. After diving at the reef, I couldn't get one of my ears to pop. I wasn't that deep, and therefore didn't incur too much pressure, but it still hurt to equalize. And since then, Wednesday, I've had some (hopefully) temporary hearing loss in my right ear. I can hear maybe 50% in that ear. I've been waiting and waiting for it to come back, but it hasn't yet. Maybe the flights tomorrow will help. Also, while white water rafting yesterday, a strap on my rented sandal broke and the front of the sole wouldn't stay under my toes. I don't remember when exactly, but I was trying to stay alive among all the rocks and water and kind of tripped on one of them underwater rocks and sliced the bottom of my big toe open pretty good. It probably should have received a few stitches, but... meh. It hurt to walk on yesterday, but its getting better. And relative to the types of injuries one can incur while in this, the most deadly of continents, I can't complain.

I'm looking forward to seeing my cats when I get back. They're probably going to be all pissed off at me and for the first 10 minutes I'm home, they'll act like they didn't even realize I was gone. They walk around and yawn and sit on the couch next to me and not really pay me much attention. Maybe they'll look at me with a look that says, "oh. hey. Were you gone? Hadn't noticed." But soon after they'll forget about that and it'll take a week for them to stop looking for constant affection.

So. That was Australia.

White Water Rafting

Today was spent white water rafting on the Tully River, again in far north Queensland. The town of Tully is about 90km south of Cairns very much entrenched in the rain forest. According to the travel agent we met in Sydney last week, the Tully River has the best commercial white water rafting in all of Australia. Not that I have anything to compare it to, but I had to agree. If only for the setting alone. Both banks of the river were covered with dense rain forest. It was beautiful.

Unfortunately, I was unable to bring my camera while rafting, so the only pictures I have of the river was at the end of our run after it was all over. There was alot of time spent in the water, and I was more than a little concerned with dying. I mean, you figure: a river + a rain forest = plenty of things in the water that will kill humans out of boredom. This river is not completely empty of crocodiles, but we were assured that they don't come within 5km of where we end the run. Very satisfying that information is. Additionally, there are all those things in the water. Oh man, what are they called? mmm... oh yeah. Rocks. They're called rocks. And they're all over the place. Most of them are hard and the rest are hard and jagged. It's the ones under water that you can't see, which smack you in the head after you fall in the water. Lots of fun.

There are no rocks in this picture.

So we signed up for regular rafting and we got on the bus this morning and there were at least 50 other people doing the same thing. So when we arrived at the staging area the guides were trying to figure out who would be in which rafts. Each raft held 6 people plus a guide. I guess there were 13 people who signed up for the 'extreme rafting' tour which meant there was spill over into a third raft. One of the guides called me over, out of the blue, and took me aside and asked if Ann and I wanted to be promoted to the extreme tour. Of course I did (and Ann had to as well because of it) so he told me to be quiet, not tell anybody (because other people paid more money to go on extreme) and to get on that bus over there. So we did. What extreme meant was we went out ahead of the rest of the group and didn't have to wait for all of them. They had about 8 rafts and we only had 3. So we got down alot quicker which allowed us to do things they don't do. For instance, we got out of the raft a few times and floated down the river in the current. There was another time where our guide offered to us the opportunity to go through some mild rapids on our backs, outside of the raft. I jumped at the opportunity. So I'm floating there, approaching the rapids, and then I'm in the middle of it. I wasn't expecting what I got. I would say that doing this - being in a rapid with nothing, letting the water toss me around as if I were a grain of sand, hitting rocks under water - is the closest one could come to drowning without actually. It was great. Well, it was great after I was done. During, I panicked and was scared and swallowed alot of water. But it was awesome. I also got to do the guides job and drive the raft through a few rapids while telling the rafters what to do (paddle forward! Stop! Hold on!). it was great. Surprisingly enough, I was the only person in our raft to volunteer. There was also a big rock sticking out of the water about 4m which we climbed and then jumped off of. That was pretty sweet, too. All of these things we wouldn't have been able to have done if we weren't on the 'extreme' tour and it was simply a stroke of luck that we actually got on extreme.

The question of the day, however, is: Will Ann jump out of a plane tomorrow?

I have my doubts. I, on the other hand, cannot wait. 14,000 feet. A whole minutes worth of free fall. I'm very excited. Cairns is clearly the extreme sport spot in Australia.

Tropical Rain Forest

We took a tour through the tropical rain forests of Australia found in far north Queensland today. It was a tour in a 4WD vehicle and it was nice to actually be chaffered around a bit given all the walking and other physically straining stuff we've been doing for the last week or so (it's pretty ridiculous how sore I was today from diving yesterday). Queenslanders are thought to be, by the rest of the country that is, a pretty weird bunch. "Mad as a bag of snakes," I read. This guy Nigel, our tour guide, didn't do anything to shake that stereotype. Strange fellow. We were driving along a highway between two sites and we passed a dead dingo on the side of the road. He was like, "ooh! We just passed a dingo. Let's go back and have a look." Then he pulls up next to the dingo lying there on the side of the road and starts pointing out the characteristics of a dingo. If that weren't bad enough, the idiots from Texas on the tour with us went over to the window of the truck and started snapping photos. Of roadkill. One of them asked Nigel a question that he couldn't answer without "getting a closer look," and I was pretty convinced he was going to get out of the truck and start pointing out features up close. You know, have a poke. I'm sure the Texans would have loved it but fortunately for Queenslanders in general, he stopped short of doing so. They were a good fit for each other though, the Texans and Nigel.

Anyway, the rain forest is huge. It encompasses a ridiculous swath of land. I forget the exact number, but many hundreds of hectares.

This was a pretty sweet waterfall in the middle of it all.

Our waiter at dinner tonight. When we were first seated and he came over to hand us our menus, he looked at me like he knew me and did a double take. I didn't notice this, but my sister did. When he came back with our water he told me he was sure I was Vin Diesel at first. No lie. This fuckin guy says this to me with a straight face. hahaha... it was hysterical. Then we're talking later on and we're talking about sports. American sports, nonetheless, which is very odd here. Nobody I've spoken to follows baseball or basketball or anything like this, so it was refreshing to have a conversation about baseball again. He asked where we were from and we said New York and he asked, "Mets or Yankees?" Of course, my response was, "Cubs!" And then he starts reminiscing about Steve Bartman. Thanks. Guy. Dammit Steve Bartman. Other than maybe in the Western Australia desert, you can't get much further and remote from Chicago as Cairns, Queensland, Australia and I still have to hear about Steve Bartman. Three years later. Great.