The Daily Diversion Archive For August, 2004

Tuesday August 10, 2004

What's cool?

Losing weight, new cell phones and fast computers.

What sucks?

Being on a diet, west coast night games and sobriety.

We're dieting.

No, not the stupid Atkins crap.

We're doing a diet we know will work. A few years back, Sarah was in a study at the U where they fed her breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The meals were nutritious, prepared in advance and geared to help her lose weight in a reasonable way. We'd been looking for some kind of program like this because it works. I think the biggest problem with being on a diet is deciding what to eat and how much of it to eat. Portion sizing is not something someone with a weight problem is very good at. Perhaps a person might even have some issues about it.

Anyway, we're on a program that our local grocery delivery company will deliver to us. It's not even remotely cheap, but breakfast, lunch and dinner come prepared and delivered twice a week. The meals are filling, tasty and best of all, they're all prepared. All we have to do is eat them. It's nice.

Since I refuse to obsess about my weight, I've not weighed myself. However, I do know that there's less of me now than there was two weeks ago. Quite a bit less. Not that anyone would notice as there's way too much of me for anyone to notice a two-week loss, but we'll be on this for a good, long while. As soon as I feel OK about it, I'll start posting weights. It may be a while, though.

I busted the antenna on my cell phone Sunday. I didn't notice it until last night. This bums me out as I really like my little Motorola. I know how much it costs to get the antenna replaced, and I didn't want to put that kind of money into a two + year old cell phone.

I poked around the web to see what was available and cool and really didn't desire anything I saw. I went to the store today and looked around. I ended up dropping a truly eye-watering amount of dough on a Motorola flip-phone with just about every current feature available.

I'm still not sure I'll keep it. I'm going to have to spend some quality time with the manual to figure out just how to take advantage of all the features. If I don't like it or can't figure it out within 20 or so days, back it goes for something more basic.

I got a new computer at work. It's fast. I like it. Not much else to say about it. It's my work machine, so I'm not as totally into it as I would be if it were my main machine here at the house.

The Twins are out west for a series with Seattle. This means I'm getting nothing for sleep for at least the next couple of days.

Regarding the sobriety comment above, alcohol is not a diet food/drink. I'm off it for a while. So. Have one for me, willya?

Thursday August 19, 2004

What's cool?

Any wins against the Yankees, Bluetooth and babies that sleep.

What sucks?

Road construction, detours and people who don't know when to shut up and leave me alone.

So the Twins looked pretty bad against Cleveland and then turn around and take two straight from the Yankees. That's pretty cool. I'm hoping we return the favor to Cleveland this weekend. Any one for a ball game?

August is starting to get the hang of sleeping for long stretches at night. Naturally, Sarah my Mom and Gus are heading out of town for a business trip this weekend so I'm sure that will screw everyone's schedule up bad. It's nice to get some sleep. I got used to getting short shrift, but Sarah, who got far less sleep than I was getting, really took it hard. She's doing far better now that Gus is letting her sleep a bit.

Bluetooth is pretty cool. I'm only starting to play with it, but it does seem to do the job it was designed for in a no-muss no-fuss sort of way.

I have always had issues with public transportation. My current issues don't have a lot to do with the LRT itself, but with the getting to it and the other riders.

Getting to and leaving the park and ride lot at Fort Snelling is getting to be a pain. Getting to it is fouled up by construction on the HWY 5 Mississippi River bridge. The usual on-ramp to 5 from Shepard Road is closed, so all the traffic gets funnelled through the crappy little intersection of Davern and West 7th. The hold up hasn't been predictible by any stretch and getting through that bottleneck can take anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Yeah, I know. Blah, blah, blah. Still, it makes a great commute suck.

They've also shut down the convenient on-ramp from the park and ride area and forced all eastbound traffic to enter before the craptacular HWY62 and HWY55 intersection. Traffic moves fairly decently through there, but is still another couple minutes of my life wasted. Add on the chance of getting stopped at the LRT crossing just south of the Fort Snelling stop AND the traffic backed up out onto HWY55 to get down the cloverleaf to HWY5 and life begins to suck both ways, there and back.

These hassles have been going on for the better part of the summer and they'll undoubtedly be over soon. What's really driving me insane is this guy who works where I do gets on the same train southbound as I do and then chats me up down to the Lake Street stop. He's 50-ish, and although he chats me up, he doesn't seem to want to listen to what I say. He makes comments about our PCs at work and when I try to set him straight about what's what, he cuts me off and goes on about something else. When I look down to my book, to him this just means to change subjects. To date, we've talked about our company's use of temps, our company's old PCs, the type of work he does, how long I've been with the company, extending the LRT through North, living in the hood, why he doesn't have children, the types of databases we use and how great the LRT is.

When I ride the train, I like to sit down and read. I don't really like to talk to strangers. I suspect that I'll eventually warm up to some of my fellow riders, but for now, I like to sit there and read my book and try to slowly wake up. In the afternoon, I like to try to get a seat and read and get myself ready to get behind the wheel.

Just about the LAST thing I want to do is chat up small talk about work and various other subjects that really don't interest me. Worse, to be cut off and not be able to finish my part of the conversation really makes talking to this guy a colossal waste of time that could be spent reading Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, PC Magazine and/or PC World. I think the next time I see him on the platform, I'm going to walk over to the pharmacy and buy some batteries or some other shit.

Monday August 23, 2004

Can anyone out there tell me why baseball commentators use the term "offense?" I'd like to know, because offense isn't really a baseball term. The term is hitting. Hitting. Like when you hit the ball with the bat. Offense is a football term. It's pure and simply wrong for baseball.

Similarly, why the hell would anyone use the word "defense" when describing baseball? The term is "fielding." Fielding. Like getting the ball and knowing what to do with it.

Football needs a term like offense because saying "running and passing" is clumsy. Sure there's more than just hitting as a way to get on base in baseball, but generally, to get on base, a batter starts in the batter's box and is at least TRYING to HIT the ball, hence HITTING.

Football also needs a term like defense, not only because it sounds good when a rowdy crowd chants it, but because it's hard to single out any specific act other than rushing the passer that comprises defense. Pass coverage, rushing the passer, defending and, um, that's about it. Defense just sells a baseball team short. There's pitching, fielding, and fielding inside bigger plays (eg: double plays, outfield assists etc...). Calling all this simply defense sort of robs the game of it's majesty.

So to all the commentators--specifically Dick and Bert--please stop this offense and defense crap. Hitting and Fielding. Say it. Enjoy how it rolls off your tongue. Think of the images they bring to you: Hitting--seeing Koskie blast a dinger into the upper deck at the dome. Fielding--watching Hunter rob some poor shmuck of a home run with a terrific leap.

Of course there's one more aspect of the game that gets missed with both offense and defense and hitting and fielding. It's pitching. Baseball is a game of threes. Three outs, three bases (home is a plate), three fielders (not defenders, mind you...), three outs and three strikes (four balls, because walks suck). So here's yet another reason that offense and defense are inappropriate for baseball.

The Twins absolutely stunned the Indians in their last home stand. Even though the Indians scored first in a couple of games, the Twins just smothered them. The Twins got it done with the long ball and with small ball. Where at first it seemed that the Twins were in a do or die situation, they're now 7 up and hopefully moving further up with every game. There's no good explanation for both the Sox and the Tribe's free fall, but it's all good news for the Twins.

Louie and I were talking about playoff tix this weekend. That's a good thing.

Monday August 31, 2004

A bit of sadness to note. My old friend Carolyn's mother died last week. Nancy Livingston was a very nice person and it's terrible that she's gone. Our thoughts go out to Carolyn and her father, Bob.

For those of you who want to see the obituary, here it is.

We've moved the TV out of the upstairs bedroom and into the living room. It's probably a long-term thing, but I hope we end up with the TV somewhere else if we stay here for a while. I don't mind the TV in our living room, but I really don't think it "goes" with the decor of the room. Our house is full of older furniture and we have a nice, newer TV that will never blend in to the room. It will stick out like a sore thumb and it will take attention away from the fireplace.

It looks like another of my blogrolled blogs is hanging up his spurs. Steven Den Beste seems to have had it with having to cope with the public's reaction to what he writes. He's good and he'll be missed. He joins dack.com, mecawilson.com and some other good ones that have come and gone.