Important Newsflash

Teh Seattle Marinerz can has cheezburger!

The ghost of Bill Veeck must have possessed someone in the Mariners’ front office…

“Nothing Interesting Happened Today”

What if important historical figures had Twitter? Now you know.

Well, We Had to Walk 10 Miles Through 7 Foot High Snowbanks to Get to School

This makes me feel older than dirt:

Giving up my iPod for a Walkman

When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.

Hilarity Ensues on My Cell Phone

I’ve always had an ambivalent relationship with cell phones. I understand that they can be very useful in emergencies, but they’re incredibly annoying. Today provided a wonderful example of just how annoying they can be.

I was in the parking lot at the grocery store when my cell phone chimed. Thinking it might be something important, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and found a text message was waiting for me. Pulling up the “messages” menu, I found a new message listed from a number I did not recognize.

I opened it, and here is what it said:

“I’m not done with the conversation. Yeah you are immiture [sic] for talking shit on [sic] my best friend, and i’m [sic] the last person you wanna talk to funny [sic]. and [sic] your cousin [sic]“

I laughed out loud in the parking lot.

One minute later, the phone chimed again. There was another new message, from the same unidentified bard of angry wrong number texting as before:

“wants [sic] to beat isa’s [sic] ass, [sic] let her try. You’re pathetic and i [sic] hear you talk shit on [sic] my friend again, [sic] trust me [sic] you’ll regret it.”

I was actually sort of impressed that despite this person’s sizable grammatical shortcomings, s/he was able to use “you’re” in proper context.

Another minute, another chirp from my phone. This time, the message was:

“wants [sic] to beat isa’s [sic] ass, [sic] let her try. You’re pathetic and i [sic] hear you talk shit on [sic] my friend again, [sic] trust me [sic] you’ll regret it.”

Maybe this was repeated for emphasis, or maybe the texter in question did not know how to operate his/her phone.

At this point, I figured it was time to do something. I was getting an annoying (but still unintentionally funny) wrong number text each minute, so I sent the message “wrong number,” in response.

FYI, I have only sent a handful of text messages in my lifetime. Every one of them has consisted of the words “wrong number.”

I figured that would take care of the problem, but about thirty seconds after that, I received the following message from the same brain-dead messenger:

“what?”

After that, the messages finally stopped. The whole experience was [sic].

and your cousin

Mmmmm . . . Crow

Me predicting the 2009 SuperLiga winner, June 20:

Chivas USA . . . will simply run away with this puppy.

Since then:

• Tigres UANL 2, Chivas USA 1
• Chicago Fire 1, Chivas USA 0

Damn, I’m good.

Epiphany of the Evening

“Kirk Cameron Blitzkrieg” would be a totally awesome name for a band.

This revelation came while driving tonight and sneering along at the top of my lungs to “Don’t Look Back in Anger” by Oasis. I wonder if the two things are related somehow.

I Predict the 2009 SuperLiga Winner

The 2009 SuperLiga kicks off tonight, which is sort of like North America’s smaller equivalent of the UEFA Cup (or whatever it is that UEFA has decided to call it now), pitting the top four Major League Soccer and top four Primera División de México clubs that didn’t qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League against one another. I’m actually watching the opening Chicago Fire-San Luis game right now.

It’s a concept I’ve always liked since it started a couple of years ago. Last year produced the surprising result of two MLS teams (New England and Houston) facing off in the championship game, and I’m going to predict that the title will stay in the hands of an American club this year, too. Chivas USA, I believe, will simply run away with this puppy.

Not that I want to see that happen. My sentimental favorite is Atlas, which is based in Guadalajara. They won the Mexican league title.

Once.

Back in the early 1950s.

That’s it.

As someone who grew up rooting for Philadelphia sports teams, I can sympathize. I would love to see Atlas win the SuperLiga this year, but I doubt that will happen, because it appears the universe hates them almost as much as it hates the Chicago Cubs. Instead, their crosstown rival’s American satellite will win it, (C.D. “Chivas” Guadalajara owns Chivas USA, which is based in Los Angeles) thereby adding insult to injury.

The Sublime and the Ridiculous on the Internet

First, the sublime.

Now, the ridiculous.

Technology and Free Speech

I’ve mocked things like Twitter and text messaging occasionally on this blog (in the case of Twitter, as recently as yesterday). However, these things do have the potential to do a lot of good as well as waste a lot of time.

We’re seeing examples of that potential now.

I’m not Iranian; I can’t speak one way or another about any given side in the current election crisis. Plus, we in the United States already have entirely too much to answer for when it comes to meddling in the internal affairs of that country.

However, as another blogger said, “I am very pro freedom of speech. Whether we agree or disagree with any given Iranian citizen, they ought to have the right to express their views.”

Here are some ways to help keep that expression going if you know how to do that newfangled techie stuff.

Also, here’s a list of sites to get some halfway decent news from that part of the world.

I Give Up

I give up. I caved. Finally. I held out as long as I could, but I could hold out no more.

I opened a Facebook account. Or, more accurately, my wife started opening a Facebook account for me last night, and I decided to go along with it.

I’ve always been very ambivalent about the whole “social networking” thing. There are probably a few reasons why:

1. I used to do public relations work for a college.
2. College students tend to put incredibly stupid things, especially stupid things in photographic form, on social networking sites.
3. Some of those stupid things are publicly viewable and can end up making the whole college look bad, which results in the college’s PR people having to scramble to put out the resulting fires.
4. It’s especially fun when reason number three occurs while you’re away on vacation.

So, I spent several years resisting joining Facebook. I’m sort of amazed that I held out all the way to the middle of 2009, to be honest. I pretty much knew that I would have to give in earlier this spring when I received a class letter in the mail from my collegiate alma mater directing people to the tenth-year reunion (yes, I am that old) Facebook group for more information.