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Friday, May 07, 2004
What took the Rangers so long to sell out and get a corporate name on their stadium? And isn't it fitting that it's a 30-year deal, although can the team prepay the principle? Were they hosed on the points and the closing costs?
posted at 10:46 PM
Play ball!
The weather is getting warmer, but not oppressive, so it was the perfect time to catch a businessman's special (and still get in time to do the long walk from the stadium to my car and even drive home for a few minutes to change and deal with an interesting phone call).
While I was happy NU's own Mark Loretta had a big game, validating my decision to wear the 'Cat hat, the Braves fans got a minor thrill with a triple play (an around-the-horn one for good measure). This is the second time, I believe, I've seen a triple play in person. The first being Randy Velarde's unassisted one at Yankee Stadium a few years ago.
Besides the beautiful weather for a game, the Braves made a number of changes from Opening Day that really improved the fan experience. For one, they've taken a page from their former Time Warner compadres, the Hawks and Thrashers, and are now giving out free programs, about the size of a Playbill. It has just enough basic roster information so fans don't seem totally clueless about the home team, plus it was a good excuse to slip in an All-Star ballot.
You can't keep score in the program, but at least now you can buy an actual scorecard for a buck. While I have my own scorebook, it aggravated me that the only way to get a scorecard in the past was to pay $5 for the big program/yearbook thing with a scorecard on a glossy page that made it impossible to write on. Thankfully they've solved that problem, although I'm still taking my tattered book with me to the park.
Finally, the one promotion I made sure to take advantage of was the half-price concessions that's a promotion to show off some of their new food items. I suppose I'd have tried more if I had the time, but it also shows how ridiculously expensive ballpark food is but doesn't need to be. For instance, there's now a place for specialized burgers (replacing the specialized hot dog stands, I believe) -- but the regular price is $8.25, and I doubt it comes with fries. It was strange paying less than $5 for nachos and a lemonade and realizing how much I'll actually pay in the future.
posted at 2:56 AM
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
It's good to see I'm not the only one confused by KFC's re-expansion of its abbreviation to something silly. But at least we don't have the animated Colonel in the TV ads anymore, either.
posted at 2:10 AM
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
You knew there was going to be some obvious hand-wringing over how the Pat Tillman story was covered, so it was somewhat surprising to see Salon's King Kaufman provide a slight counterpoint by looking at the psychology over how we react to such stories (especially when comparing Tillman's death to others who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don't mean one life is more valuable than another in some measurable, abstract, objective way. I just mean it's a matter of perspective. Consider any one of those soldiers whose death we've heard about recently. Are his life and death more valuable and important to his family and friends than Pat Tillman's? Of course they are.
Pat Tillman's life and death tell us a compelling story, one that touches us. He hit a nerve in people not just because he put a face on the war effort, which he did, but also because his story had so many compelling elements, not the least of which was his refusal to do interviews, to participate in his own mythmaking. Giving up a glamorous, million-dollar career to join the Army during wartime is one thing, but shunning the spotlight? In 21st century America, that really made him stand out.
But as unusual as it was, as unusual as he was, Tillman's story was just so damn easy to identify with. Who among us, upon hearing about him leaving the NFL and joining up, didn't put ourselves in his shoes and think, Would I have done that? It's all the more compelling that in the vast majority of cases, the answer must have been "No." It certainly was for me.
We ascribe different levels of meaning and importance to all sorts of objectively similar things all the time because of the way they speak to us. There's nothing wrong with that. It might feel a little weird to shortchange the cop on the beat or the firefighter rushing into a burning building or even Tillman's comrades in arms, but it's not. For any one of us, no two lives -- and no two deaths -- are equal.
And in a related story, MSNBC.com pulled Ted Rall's cartoon questioning Tillman's hero credentials that sounds a lot like the editorial at UMass from last week.
I'm not sure I agree with the pulling of the cartoon or even the sometimes the overboard reaction to Gonzalez's editorial. For the most part, the positions on the war I've seen are:
a) You support the administration's position, or
b) You're against the current administration's position, but you still support the troops.
These two pieces show there's at least an option c) You're not only against the war, but also against the troops fighting it. So f--- them all.
(In a sick way, it's a lot like the Point/Counterpoint bit in Airplane! where one side says "...they bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say let them crash.")
posted at 4:00 PM
Monday, May 03, 2004
This strip had me rolling, although I wonder how many people are going to get the reference in the punch line?
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