The geek in me…
For several weeks, I’ve pondered whether to fly to Chicago in late July for the UNITY journalism conference, where the Asian American, African American, Native American and Latino journalism organizations unite for a week-long gathering. It’s a chance to meet up with current colleagues, reconnect with old friends, and well, party.
A few days ago, I got a spam email, saying: “15 days until pre-registration ends!” The next day, I got an email that said: “14 days until pre-registration ends!” Today, I got an email that read: “50 days until UNITY!”
Well, here’s how I figure it. For the $500 for roundtrip airfare and the $375 it would cost for pre-registration, not to mention food and other expenses, I can buy three new second-generation iPhones for my whole family.
The geek in me wins out!
And yes, I think I’m going to choose the new 3G iPhone over the new BlackBerry Bold.
Blackberrys, the presidential race and Dungeness crab…
This is an illustrated tale of how my donation to my favorite presidential candidate was diverted to seafood bliss.
A month ago, on Tuesday, Feb. 5, I thought the only important thing going on in the world was Super Tuesday and the race for delegates in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries. Read more
Feed me!
This is Robbie, Miiko’s favorite dog. He knows that if he stares at me long enough, I will eventually cave in and feed him bits off my plate. The Dog Whisperer would not approve, but so what?
Easily amused
I ordered a new CD by an indie rock band today and when the shipment confirmation arrived, the length of the email caught my eye. It wasn’t the typical, bland “Your order has shipped” note. It was far more creative.
It read:
Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.
A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.
Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.
We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Wednesday, January 30th.
Just hilarious. Call me gullible or easily amused, but just because of their originality and humor, I went to their Web site again to check out their music catalogue. I’m definitely going to order from them again. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the CD arriving in a tiny, little cardboard box.
Is it spring yet?
I hate this time of year, and I’m not talking about the weather. It’s been nearly three months since the World Series and another two months before the 2008 baseball season starts. I’ve been jonesin’ for baseball big time, so what do I do? Go nuts the last few weeks, buying tickets to six spring training games as teams in the Cactus League open up ticket sales to the public.
About ten years ago, when I flew into Arizona for ballgames in March, I loved lying in the grass beyond the outfield fences and stretching out. But now I’ve become a snob and like to get as close to home plate as possible. And that’s why I love the Milwaukee Brewers. Their fans seemingly never go to their games, so you can always get seats right behind home plate. (Score!)
Two years ago, during the World Baseball Classic, when Team Japan played a practice night game against the Brewers, my brother and I just strolled into the ballpark, bought tickets, and were three rows behind home plate. We were so close to Ichiro on the on-deck circle that we could hear the velcro rip as he put on and adjusted his elbow pad.
Off the field, this offseason provided us another round of mindnumbing steroids news — Barry heading to court, the Mitchell Report, the Congressional hearing and the Clemens saga. We get it. Steroids is bad. Yes, the last 20 years of baseball statistics are a joke. But the sport has tried to clean up its act and instituted stringent testing three years ago, so let’s move on people.
Major League Baseball’s Web site has a countdown to Feb. 14, the day pitchers and catchers report to spring training. As I write this, it’s 18 days, 21 hours, 28 minutes and 2 seconds.
Play ball, already, dammit.