Listen to me now, believe me later...

• 14Jul 09

  The Prince

  Even though I'm not much of a baseball fan anymore I watched the All-Star Home Run Derby highlights last night with particular interest... way back in the summer of 1990, when I was a senior in college, I was working as a waiter in a sports bar in my hometown on Long Island. The bar was owned by Paul Gibson, who was at the time a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers and a graduate of my high school. He later went on to pitch for the Mets.

  The last game of the season had the Tigers playing against the Yankees in New York and Paul arranged for me and one of the cooks to bring a whole bunch of food from the restaurant to the Tigers locker room at Yankee Stadium for after the game. We drove out, delivered the food to a loading dock and Paul had sent a message to us that we were welcome to sit and watch the game from the player's wives box. Sweet!

  So we headed up to the box seats, which were the best seats I've ever had for a game, and I plopped down next to Cecil Fielder's wife (for those of you unfamiliar with Cecil, he was one of the top home run hitters of that time). She was very nice and she introduced herself and her son Prince, who was crawling and climbing all over the seats and aisles. Prince was the largest six year old boy I have ever seen in my life... he acted like he was six, but he looked like he was 14.

  The game itself had alot of hype going into it - it was the final game of the season and Cecil was leading the majors in home runs that year. Going into the game he had 49 home runs and everyone wondered if he would make it to 50. Not only did he hit number 50, but he also hit number 51 during the game. Two homers in the final game! And I was sitting next to his wife and son as they cheered him on... how cool...

  Flash forward to the present day and it amazes me that that six year old boy is now a kick-ass major leaguer in his own right, even winning the Home Derby by absolutely crushing the ball time and time again yesterday. It was alot of fun to watch and it brought back alot of cool memories. I've been routing for him to do good all along because of that one night and to see him become not just a good ball player, but an All Star like his dad has been really amazing.

  That wasn't the end of my old story though... especially for all you older baseball fans... after the Tigers-Yankees game Paul invited some of the Tigers back to the bar to hangout. He closed the place down just for them and we got invited along. My favorite memory at the bar was Alan Trammell (All Star shortstop)and Jack Morris (the All Star pitcher) pretending to be Tom Cruise in "Cocktail" behind the bar. It was a heck of a night.

  • Posted Jul 14, 2009 12:05 pm PT
  • Category: Sports
  • 5 Comments
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• 11Jul 09

  Force Unleashed Blows

  It sucks. Bad. I hate it. It's the most un-fun game I've played in quite awhile. It looks pretty, but that's about it. I'm glad I only spent $10 on this crud, if I had spent the whole $60 I would have flown to the Lucas ranch and gone postal. I'm only going to keep going because it's ruining my achievement point percentage. I haven't been this disappointed and angry at a game since Enter the Matrix. Scoring this game a 7.5 was generous.

  And why do female aliens always have boobs? Boobies may be only a human thing...alien species would have never developed them if there was no need for them, so why do game makers always put boobs on aliens? I know the answer (male gamers) but it still seems odd to put human features on lots of supposed alien species.

  • Posted Jul 11, 2009 9:43 pm PT
  • Category: Rant
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• 7Jul 09

  Cyber Attack

  Wish I was joking around about this, but apparently the US Government has been fighting off a massive cyber attack that started on the 4th of July. Several government websites like Transportation, Secret Service, Treasury Department and the Federal Trade Commission were completely knocked out and some are still down. The effectiveness of the attack was total - 100% denial of service. Crazy... the official response from the government is that there has been an attack but they won't discuss it anymore than that.

  Check out the story...

  It's happening in South Korea right now as well.

  Does that point a finger at North Korea? Or simply coincidence? What are you up to Kim Jong Il?

  • Posted Jul 7, 2009 9:17 pm PT
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