Boston Red Sod

For the ultimate Red Sox fan. You can now buy a 18″ x 9″ rectangle of grass from last year’s championship season for a mere $150. I’m sure the careful gardener could rip up his existing lawn, break up the piece into say 1″ square bits and nurture this into an entire yard full of fabled Fenway turf. I’d have bought some with my birthday money, but they won’t ship. The only way to get your grass is to show up at Fenway Park Gate B at 9:00 AM on Saturday, September 24th and that is too long a drive.

Fenway Championship Sod Sale

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

Ladies and Gentlemen, Kate Smith

Well, the FRS managed one out of three at the Stadium and ended up the weekend with a 3 game lead in the East. There are 20 games left to go in the season, so it is not over by a long shot, but the Sox are probably happy with their position right now. Of course us die-hard fans just know that a collapse is coming, I can feel it, a 2 game lead over the Yankees entering the final weekend of the season and needing to win just one game against the Bronx Bombers to clinch and they get swept at home. To make matters worse it will be on a Mark Bellhorn homer and Alan Embree will pitch a masterful 2 innings of relief to finish the game.

Although dead since 1986, I fully expect it to actually be Kate Smith singing “God Bless America” during the 7th inning stretch the way Bob Sheppard the Yankee Stadium public address announcer says, “Ladies and gentlemen, Kate Smith.”

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

Free Time

Donna and I took a nice short 8.5 mile bike ride this morning. The sun was just clearing the trees when we started and it was actually cool. Made a stop at the bagel place for breakfast and then pedaled home on the busiest road in town (because it was so early there was no traffic to speak of, but hours later it was clogged with shoppers.)

So what am I doing with all my free time now that I’m not doing those photo memes? Not coming up with quality blog posts that’s for sure. I had a great one earlier, but didn’t write down a hint, so I would remember it now that I’m actually sitting in front of the PC. It was kick-ass too! Better than yesterday’s post!

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

Man That Was A Long 4 Days

Why do short work weeks seem so long?

So far this week the FRS are one and one in televised games, but tonight is the one that really matters, Red Sox vs. Yankees in the Bronx.

From a tidbit in this morning’s paper:
3 Downtown Events To Close Streets Saturday
1) Sept. 11 Memorial March
2) Southeast Clown Association Parade
3) Walk for Autism
There is a very tasteless joke in there somewhere…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

I’m Done For Now

I have unsubscribed from the mailing lists of the three photography memes I have participated in regularly for about the last two years. At first they were exciting, they gave me something to do with the digital camera. But recently they have become tiring for me, how many times can you shoot “Yellow”? Yeah, I know, there are about a thousand ways to picture yellow, but only if you are really into photography.

For me it was always something I toyed with, never real serious. I took a bunch of photography courses in college and I’ve read a bunch of books on the subject too, so I know how to take a good photograph, but I don’t spend the time doing it to actually get them. I usually end up with a bunch of snapshots and from what I’ve seen on the web, there are too many snapshots out there already.

When I first got into blogging I stumbled onto CD Swaps and I did that for awhile, but I stopped. Then I did the photography thing, but that is over now. What is the next thing I’ll get “into”? Suggestions welcome.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

Is It Stealing Or Is It Art?

Within the last month two of the blogs I regularly read and are linked to the side there have commented on Bill Watterson and unauthorized Calvin stickers. If they read my blog they would know that I have commissioned a vinyl decal place I found on the web to make me a Calvin & Hobbes sticker for my car. Have they stopped reading my blog because of this? If not, are they aiding and abetting a known criminal? Or is their only real objection that they found the image of Calvin peeing on “insert object” offensive?

I scanned the image I’m having made into a sticker from a C&H collection book I bought. The fellow that is making the sticker for me feels as if I have commissioned a piece of art from him. Is this sticker fair use for me? Is it art? Is it a tribute to my favorite cartoon characters?

My local newspaper just started carrying Calvin & Hobbes on the funny pages again. Not new stuff, but 20 year old strips. C & H will only be running from now until December the announcing article said. It is mainly a way to help sell Mr. Waterson’s new book, The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, a $150 set of books that reprints ever strip that ever appeared in the newspaper over it’s 10 year run. To make room for adding Calvin & Hobbes the paper stopped running Shoe daily and a couple of other smaller comics on Sunday. I sure hope Mr. Waterson is compensating the authors of the strips he is misplacing in this self-promotion scheme…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291

Sneaky, Sneaky

Haven’t said much about spam recently. Levels at work have really sunk, for a while there I was down to the teens in junk received and one day I actually got into single digits! But the last two weeks it has climbed back up a bit and has leveled out around 35 a day. Today I actually had a couple of ’em slip through the net.

Here is what the email looks like:
spamsucks.gif

Here is how they did it:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1106" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Courier>
<DIV style="FLOAT: left;">Ul<BR>Xa<BR>Me<BR>Ce<BR>Le<BR><B>Ci
</B><BR><B>Vi</B><BR>Am<BR><B>Va</B><BR>Pr</DIV>
<DIV style="FLOAT: left;">tr<BR>na<BR>ri<BR>le<BR>vi<BR><B>al
</B><BR><B>ag</B><BR>bi<BR><B>li</B><BR>op</DIV>
<DIV style="FLOAT: left;">am<BR>x<BR>dia<BR>brex<BR>tra<BR><B>is
</B><BR><B>ra</B><BR>en<BR><B>um</B><BR>ecia</DIV>
<DIV style="FLOAT: left;"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR> $1<BR> $3
<BR><BR> $3<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="FLOAT: left;"><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>.21<BR>.33<BR>
<BR>.75<BR></DIV>
<DIV style="CLEAR: both"> </DIV>
<DIV><A href="http://www.spamsucks.com">http://www.spamsucks.com
</A></DIV></FONT></DIV></B></B></BODY></HTML>

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291