One New York Life

I’ll be going to the first game at Citi Field today. For the occasion, I joined Twitter. We’ll see how it goes, but you can follow me on Twitter for opening day.

It took until March 10th, but I finally did it. My entire back-log of stuff is done and scheduled. I have completed a New Year’s Resolution.

All of Battlestar Galactica this week, random crap spaced out over the next month, a half-dozen beer snobs in the can, and finally able to get back to baseball in a couple weeks.

I hereby retire from making New Year’s Resolutions. I’m going out on top.

I’d like to thank new blogroll entrant Overthinking It for finally addressing something that’s bothered me about Back To The Future since my ill-advised attempt to be a physics student my first year of college.

To make an awesomely long story very, very short… The Earth orbits the sun at a speed of about 30 km/s 20 miles/second while rotating at a speed of about 0.3 miles/second at the Equator. Since Hill Valley isn’t exactly on the Equator (but surprisingly, does appear on Google Maps) the relative speed is a little less. We’ll call it 0.25 miles/second for ease of math.

Using Einstein’s 1-minute trip, for the Delorean to appear at the exact same location it had to travel about 1200 miles along the Earth’s orbit while compensating about 15 miles along the Earth’s surface. Since we see Marty’s perspective when he goes to 1955, we know the trip is nearly instantaneous to the driver (confirmed by the human eye being unable to see any time differential on Einstein’s watch) and we can say that Einstein traveled about 1200 miles in less than a millisecond or so — about 4 times the speed of light.

I have no big point to tie this together. Only that Doc Brown doesn’t get nearly enough credit for creating a machine that can not only travel through time, but also solving the speed of light problem. And props for someone actually doing the math close to how it’s supposed to be done.

I would say this officially meant Beer Pong had jumped the shark, but:

The real drama centered on Albany’s the Iron Wizard Coalition. These guys made last year’s finals and sank their final cup while their opponents, Chauffeuring the Fat Kid, still needed four. They went triple Gramatica, jumping and dancing and hugging. “I had that money spent,” says Mike Hulse, 28, of the Wizards.

But they forgot about beer pong’s diabolical redemption rule, which allows a last chance as long as you don’t miss another cup. Fat Kid never did. Four straight sinks. Pong history. Kid wound up winning the game and the cash. “Do I think about it?” says Hulse, who doesn’t make much working for a cable company. “I think about it every time I look at a bill. Every freakin’ time.”

My boy Hulse, quoted by Rick Reilly, on ESPN.

Five words that no man wants to hear on a Friday night. Five words that can strike terror in to a man’s heart. Five words that can ruin a weekend.

“We’re going to Wal-Mart tomorrow.”

When Ms. L dropped that bombshell Friday night on the way home from a second straight evening of my mom’s ongoing pet project titled “Operation: Give My Family Diabetes”, I tried to play comatose. When that didn’t work, I whined. When that didn’t work, I quickly went through the five stages of grief before sadly settling on acceptance.

Y’see, Thanksgiving is one of the few weekends each year where we either pop for a car rental or use my car to drive up. Since I still own a place, we generally haul all the Salvation Army clothes upstate, along with summer clothes to store in the relatively large house we don’t live in, laundry (since laundry in my upstate house is free), and Ninja Kitty. We return with free, clean laundry, winter clothes, and as many groceries as we can fit in a rental car. The Walmart trip is a double-edged sword. On the good side, we get about two months worth of crap for, literally, 1/3rd of NYC prices. On the bad side, we spend about an hour in Walmart.

10:30 am: I’m sleeping on the couch because the townhouse doesn’t have beds. There’s a couch downstairs and an air mattress upstairs. I take the couch because Ms. L hates it. The couch is about 25 years old and I’m the third generation to sleep on it. It’s logged about a billion hours of loungin’ time between my dad and my granddad. It’s horrifyingly ugly, but built extra long for my tall grandfather and fabulously comfortable. As I was not blessed with height, it fits me and the cat comfortably. It’s one of those pieces of furniture that all men love and all women want to light on fire. At some point, Ms. L has come down and turned on Food Network and tries to bribe me awake with coffee. It almost works… then I fall back to sleep and have odd dreams about the Neelys.

11:30 am: I actually get up.

12:00 pm: I go in to the kitchen to get coffee and breakfast. Breakfast, of course, is an oversized chocolate chip muffin with chocolate frosting from Price Chopper. Since this weekend had no chance of being healthy, I decided to just completely blow off any semblance of health for any meal.

12:15 pm: We leave. You’ll note the lack of shower time. I shower after Walmart, people.

12:16 pm: “We need to go to Colonie Center. I want to go to Steve & Barry’s.” This day could go on the short list of worst days ever.

12:45 pm: Arrive Colonie Center… one of the few remaining malls upstate. Malls are horrifying places on Black Weekend. I park near Macy’s. We head toward the mall and immediately get behind slow-walkers. When people talk about the “pace” being faster in New York, they really just mean that everyone walks realizing they are actually trying to get somewhere. Upstate, everyone walks as though through a mine-field. I know I used to do this and want to punch myself for it.

1:00 pm: Ms. L goes to New York & Co to find a winter jacket. I go to Barnes and Noble to read nerd stuff.

1:20 pm: We go to Steve & Barry’s. I feel like this is the Walmart appetizer. Since they’re going out of business, their normally $10 suspect clothing is now $4.98 suspect clothing. You’ve never seen so many XXXL and XS clothes in one place. I’d also wager you’ve never seen people with SHOPPING CARTS full of Starbury.

1:35 pm: Cheesecake Factory? You bet’cha fuggin Cheesecake Factory. I house a Cuban sandwich and half a plate of cheese Wontons. Ms. L opts for the appetizer of deep-fried mac & cheese. It’s 2-days after Thanksgiving. Eff it.

2:00 pm: On the way.

2:30 pm: Arrive the Walmart on Washington Avenue Extension. Now, this Walmart used to be a dirty little place. Ms. L informs me that this is now a SUPER Walmart with two floors of lead-made goods from China.

2:45 pm: The list of stuff that we needed: a hair dryer, a TV tray, razor blades (for a Mach 3, not to end the misery), a mixing bowl, cleaning supplies, and a new trash can.

2:50 pm: “Do we need cat litter?” “Not really.” “It’s 21 pounds for $8.00.” “Buy it.” To note, a 5-pound jug in Manhattan is $6.50.

3:xx pm: Mad Lib. “Do we need [noun]?” “Not really.” “It’s [absurdly large amount] for [reasonable amount of money].” “Buy it.” To note, a [absurdly small amount] in Manhattan is [incredibly inflated amount of money]. Fill in as you feel appropriate.

4:30 pm: Total Walmart bill: $272.05. I did not think this was possible without buying furniture or electronics.

4:31 pm: We walk to the car and I’m loading bags o’ Walmart into my trunk. I drop “aren’t we gloriously suburban today.” I almost question my occasional desire to move back to this, then realize I’m driving back to a house whose mortgage is 1/5th my rent.

4:35 pm: WE FORGOT THE F(*&*#ING MIXING BOWL.

5:15 pm: Arrive home, empty the car.

5:30 pm: Glorious, glorious shower.

I installed Google Analytics on this thing recently to get some idea of exactly how lightly read this blog is. It was more out of curiosity than anything else but, much to my surprise, Google Analytics gives you a listing of the search terms that people used in Google to get to your site. Tonight I discovered that this post from last year is the third hit when you search for “jetblue sucks”. I also discovered that the beer reviews bubble up through Google amazingly well. Last week’s Beer Snob on Pete’s Tavern was the third hit behind the actual Pete’s Tavern Geocities website and the societal scourge (and bastion of blog fodder as soon as I figure out how to format it) known as Yelp. Google started sending me traffic on that post about 3 hours after it went up and it’s referred a significant number of people here since… more than 6 times any other post.

This tells me 3 things – 1) I need to start looking for a new template that I don’t hate that actually has better “if you want to read more about beer, click here” links. 2) I’m never, ever, going to be able to change the url of this blog without hosing my Google ranking. 3) I really, really have to do a better editing job in case anyone of import ever comes here and wants to take me away from all this and bring me to the Big City to follow my dre…

Dammit.

That Bootleg Guy let me know that I’m running one behind the cute office secretary who picks teams based on their snazzy uniforms. I’d be upset, but I’m pretty sure I’m running five behind my friend’s pre-school nephew and a dozen behind my cat. So… who feels dumb now, Mr. Condescendingface?

–

W/W – Vikings -4. over Texans, 28-21, Vikings cover: I didn’t see any of this game… I’ll just presume it was what I thought it was.

L/L – Bengals -7.5 over Jaguars, 21-19, Jags cover: The Jags are done. D-U-N done.

W/L – Bucs -8 over Chiefs, 30-27, Chiefs cover: Didn’t really see much of this game, only saw that the Chiefs jumped out to an early 14 point lead and squandered it in to a loss. That’s what happens to bad teams.

L/L – Ravens +1 over Browns, 37-27, Browns cover: Great comeback. Not much else you can say. Huge defensive stand by the Ravens defense and they’re signing up to be the other team in the AFC title game.

L/W – Jets +5.5 over Bills, 26-17, Jets +5.5: I’ll be honest… I didn’t think the Jets were as good as they’re playing. I still think Brett Favre’s going to break their hearts at an inopportune time.

W/W – Cardinals -3 over Rams, 34-13, Cards outright: About what we figured. Also — gotta love ESPN… Kurt Warner crushes a terrible team and they start talking league MVP. Nothing says “league MVP” like first place in a division where the 2nd place team is 2-6.

W/L – Bears -12.5 over Lions, 27-23, Bears cover: No surprises here… only that the Bears didn’t win by more.

W/L – Titans -5 over Packers, 19-16, Titans cover: Someone pointed out yesterday the outside chance of getting to Thanksgiving and having the Lions at 0-11 and the Titans at 11-0 for their game. I don’t know why I find this incredibly amusing, but I want it to happen now. Also, kudos to the NFL for the third straight year of having a game on Thanksgiving that I won’t see at my parents house. Well done, guys.

L/L – Dolphins +3.5 over Broncos, 26-17, Denver covers: Denver is, as they say, done. Fork and all.

W/W – Falcons -3 over Raiders, 24-0, Falcons cover: Well done, Al.

W/W – Giants -7.5 over Cowboys, 35-14, Giants cover: This game wasn’t even as close as the final score since 7 of the Cowboy points came off a Pick-6. Nothing makes me happier.

W/W – Eagles -7 over Seahawks, 26-7, Eagles cover: The Eagles/Giants game next weekend is going to epic.

L/W – Colts -5 over Patriots, 18-15, Patriots outright: This was the first of two really boring prime time games. Grinding, 15-play drives can be fun to watch if it’s your team… it’s really boring when it’s not your team… and it’s double boring when two teams exchange those drives for 60 minutes.

L/L – Steelers +2.5 at Redskins, 23-6, Redskins cover: OK, NOW I get the whole “Steelers are a Super Bowl team” thing. That defense looked unfrigginstoppable in DC last night and locked up the win for Obama. I’d also like to send a big “eff you” to both teams since I needed Nate Washington and Santana Moss to COMBINE for 10 points and they couldn’t get it done.

Five Good Spreads
5 points – Giants -7.5 over Cowboys – W
4 points – Redskins -2.5 over Steelers – L
3 points – Eagles -7 over Seahawks – W
2 points – Cards -3 over Rams – W
1 point – Falcons -3 over Raiders – W

Standings

Straight Up: 8-6 (67-63)
Spread: 7-7 (62-65-3)
Point Pool: 11/15 (65/135 – .481)

The head of our division guaranteed that none of the almost 3,000 layoffs from Parent Company are supposed to come from Parent Company’s Litigation Support division. At the end of the day — suing people is recession-proof.

I fully expect this to mean that our entire division will be fired by noon tomorrow

From: [Big Boss]@xxxxxxxx
Sent: Fri 10/24/2008 4:36 PM
Required: All
Subject: Meeting Request – [Parent Company] Update
Location: Dial-In
When: Monday, October 27, 2008 3:00 PM-4:00 PM

Big Boss

—

Awesome.

I still can’t believe she married Wesley Windham-Price

=(