My Sports Shopping Spree

Someone needs to take my credit card away! I'm quite a few dollars poorer thanks to online shopping. I am the type of person who goes in spurts. I will not get a hair cut for a year and then chop all my hair off. I don't go shopping often, but every now and then I go on a spree.
It all started with Spring Training. I have been dying for baseball to return. Not just because that means winter is over, but because the Red Sox ended last season on such a sour note. It's time to correct that.

This app has a clock as well as an alarm and a news feed. It's kind of dumb, but kind of funny!

I bought this app last year and loved it. I was disappointed that the price went up this year, but that didn't stop me from buying it. It's a great app to keep track of games when you can't be near the TV or computer. It has video recaps of the game as well as audio of all the games with your choice of home or away team's broadcasts. I was disappointed to find out that is only updates the Spring Training games on the half inning, but in the regular season it updates every few minutes.
I've been to two Red  Sox games in my life. Both were in Boston last year. This year I decided that, in addition to one game in Boston in August, I wanted to check out some other stadia, not that they can hold candle to Fenway Park!

I have actually been to Rogers Center before for a baseball game. It was on a class trip to Toronto in the eighth grade. I remember nothing other than the roof! I don't remember who the Blue Jays were playing, but it wasn't the Sox. I can't wait to go again. I haven't been north of the border since a passport was involved. It will be the first time I've used mine, though hopefully not the last.

I have only heard great things about Camden Yards. One day out of the clear blue my dad comes home from work and says that we should take a vacation to Baltimore. A coworker of his was raving about the aquarium and railroad museum among other things. I immediately got on the Sox schedule to find out when they would be in Baltimore.

I, sadly, live outside of NESN territory. (Trust me, everyday I dream of ways to get myself a job and place to live in Suffolk County.) This year I finally broke down and bought MLB.TV. Today, I watched the game against the Orioles. It was so nice to be able to see it, rather than just hear it. I watched it in lower quality so that my internet could keep up. I had to watch the feed from MASN, but when regular season starts I'll get a choice.
After reading all of this you might say I'm obsessed.
I would say guilty as charged!

Happy Birthday, Mike Lowell

I think it absolutely sucks that we get to watch him in Spring Training knowing that we’re going to lose him soon. (It kind of reminds me of watching the Eddie House thank you video at the Celtics vs. Knicks game last night.) Why do I get so attached? I’m just a girl I guess. I know that sports is a business: a form of entertainment. But after a while it feels like the players are your family/friends, despite the fact that you don’t even know them. I know you shouldn't use mushy words like "feel" or "friend" in reference to sports, but I do anyway.
I saw Mike Lowell play third base at my first game at Fenway Park last year. A ball came screaming down the third base line and I expected to see it continue into the outfield, but it stopped when it got to him because he had snagged it. I still can’t believe he got it! It was a great play to watch even from my far away seats in Grandstand 6!
I had a special place in my heart for Lowell after watching his great performance in the 2007 World Series. (I had also been rooting for him in 2003 with the Marlins.) He always seemed to have a great at bat if he got a ball first. When he came to the plate, I called him “Scary Lowell” because he looked like he could kick your butt if he wanted to, but he’s the nicest guy. (His autobiography is a great read and made me like the guy even more.) That’s why losing him is so hard.
It's one thing to lose a jerk like Manny Ramirez who quit on the team. Or a traitor like Johnny Damon. But a class-act and a wonderful hitter like Mike Lowell should be someone a team hangs onto for dear life.
So, Happy Birthday, Mike Lowell. You will be missed.

The Future Looks Bright (at the moment anyway)

In my last post (Good Day Watching Today RT) I was glad that the word  "today" was in my top 5 most tweeted words (according to tweetstats.com). I felt that this is a good sign that I'm focusing on the present and not dwelling on the past. I didn't, however, have much to say about the future.
Today I bought and printed tickets to Wicked: A New Musical. I was so excited (though I was more excited when my Red Sox tickets came in the mail on Truck Day!) that I added the date of the show to my "Days Until" application. That's when I realized that I had quite a few events to look forward to.

I used to feel like always counting down was a bad thing because you were counting your days away. Now I think it's nice to have things to look forward to. It makes the boring days more interesting when there is an event on the horizon.

Good Day Watching Today RT

good day watching today rt
These are my top tweeted words according to Tweetstats.com as of 9:45pm Saturday February, 20. I can't say I'm surprised by this result. (I am surprised that neither "red" nor "sox" were in the top 5, but at least #redsox was in the top 5 hashtags, so they won't have to revoke my Red Sox Nation Citizenship Card!)
I'm not surprised, but I am a little disappointed with myself, that "watching" is one of my most tweeted words. I would rather it had been "going" as in "I'm going to a Sox game" or "I'm going to New Zealand." Or "making" as in "I'm making another video project." Or "playing" as in "I'm playing my violin more often now." Or "writing" as in "I'm writing a story." Maybe I can work on replacing "watching" with something more proactive.
Does having "RT" as a top tweeted word mean I'm unoriginal and can't come up with my own ideas and just retweet the thoughts of others? Or does it simply mean that I follow some pretty great folks and I like to share their thoughts with my friends? I'm going with the latter.
I am glad that "good" is one of my top words. I'm not an incurable optimist, I just try to ignore the negative when I can't do anything to change it. The fact that "day" and "today" are in the top is also a positive thing: I'm focusing on the present and not the past.
Overall, "good day watching today rt" isn't a bad set of words. What words will show up in the future?

Happy Birthday, Facebook!

According to this morning’s trending topics, today is Facebook’s 6th birthday! It seems that lately there has been a rash of theme photo weeks.

About a month ago there was “use-a-photo-of-yourself-as-a-kid” week. I didn’t participate because I’m old enough that my baby pictures are in this medium called “film”! You may have heard of it. My mother doesn’t know how to use a scanner and I’m too lazy to scan hundreds of old photos. It’s too bad I didn’t participate that week because I was much cuter as a child than I am now.

Next came “use-a-wedding-photo” week. I’m not married and I’m ok with it. I certainly don’t have a problem with marriage as an institution. It’s too bad that my parents (and other couples their age) don’t have Facebook or know how to use scanners, because there was some pretty scary hair in the 70s. That week would have produced some wicked funny pictures!

Most recently there was “use-a-celebrity-you-have-convinced-yourself-you-look-like” week. I couldn’t think of anyone that I looked like, no matter how hard I stretched my imagination. I got a kick out of other people’s choices, however. Some were spot on, while others? Not so much. My pride was a little hurt that I none of my friends made a suggestion of an attractive celebrity that I looked like, but I got over it.

So, what if someone died and made me Queen of Facebook? I would make “use-yourself-with-your-favorite-baseball-hat-picture” week since that’s what I‘ve been using since I joined FB about two years ago.

Or an even better suggestion would be “use-a-picure-of-yourself” week. What a thought! Right now, if a stranger hacked into my account and viewed my newsfeed, he or she would marvel at my friend Sue who appears to be two people, one male and one female, who are joined at the hip! Then there is my friend, Nate, who is a 9 month old girl! The stranger would fall off his or her chair to discover that I am friends with a 30 week-old fetus, Justine! How do I maintain a friendship with someone in the womb? It’s a modern-day medical miracle!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being proud to be in a relationship, or being an expectant parent, or having cute children. That’s great, but that’s what the photo albums are for. Your profile picture should be a picture of YOU!

Anyway, happy birthday, Facebook. May you continue to bring me friends’ updates for years to come. Or at least until all my friends are on Twitter!

Twitter and the Technophobe

A few months ago I watched a coworker squint at a cellphone in an ill-fated attempt to send a picture message. He finally gave up and handed the phone to a younger member of our lunch table. I vowed right then that no matter how old I got, I wouldn’t get shut out of new technology.

That night I was watching SportsCenter and the episode featured “tweets” by various athletes. I had been hearing about this whole “Twitter” thing, but didn’t know anyone personally who was into it. I pulled up Google on my Macbook Pro which, much to my cat’s chagrin, is almost permanently attached to my lap, and looked up “Twitter.” I was confused and a little overwhelmed at first. I was about to shut the window and give up, when I realized that this was just the way to tackle my technophobia. I dug around for a while and kind of got a feel for it, but was somewhat discouraged by the lack of “this is how you tweet” instruction. I’m a very “by-the-book” type person so the freeform environment of Twitter was not my cup of tea. I signed up for an account and then surfed over to the library’s website and put a few books about Twitter on hold. This made me feel a little better. Hope, in the form of step-by-step directions, was on the way!

Over the course of the next few days while I wanted for my library books to arrive, I found some interesting news outlets to follow (such as Boston.com and NZHerald) as well as a plethora of fellow Red Sox fans (Bill Simmons!). I didn’t write any Tweets because I had no followers to read them. I was content to use it only as a information gathering service. The true power of this came to light during Thanksgiving.

I was at a family get together and I dug my iPod out of my pocket to send some “Happy Thanksgiving” emails. When I was done, I booted up Echofon and the first Tweet I read was the New Zealand Herald telling me about Tiger Woods’ car crash! Needless to say, my family and I were all talking about it that evening as information began trickling in. This made me realize what a powerful tool this newfangled Twitter could be.

Also during Thanksgiving weekend I got my first followers! True, most of them were the Twitter equivalent of junk-mailers just looking for followers, but one of them was Jerry Remy! I immediately followed him back. I also found more people to follow. I even wrote some tweets!

Fast forward about two months to the present. I’ve since read Twitter for Dummies and The Twitter Book. (Both were helpful, but nothing compares to just jumping in and getting started.) I’ve collected over 100 followings and 30 followers. I’ve written over 350 Tweets and had some really great conversations with people as far away as Wales and New Zealand! This positive experience with Twitter was really what inspired me to tackle another modern-day invention: the blog. (Ok, so Julie and Julia helped too!)

I haven’t been able to get any of my coworkers on Twitter, but I’ll keep trying!

No School After the Super Bowl? Been There. Done That.

Some schools in New Orleans are going to close on the Monday after the Super Bowl. That got me thinking...

What do you think of when the Super Bowl comes around each year? Expensive commercials? The Vince Lombardi Trophy? Half-time shows? Wardrobe malfunctions? For me it will always be: no school on Monday.

On the evening of Super Bowl XXV I was a bright-eyed, happy 9 year-old girl sitting on my grandparents’ couch in Buffalo, NY. OK, I lied. I’ve never been bright-eyed, but you get the idea. I was young. I was naive. I really thought that kick would be good. By the end of the night I was hiding in the bathroom pretending I wasn’t crying. I had become a Bills fan.

I had been coming to Buffalo to visit my mother’s side of the family my entire life. I had watched my share of football games on TV. Sometimes the announcers wouldn’t be to my grandfather’s liking, so he would turn the sound down and turn the radio up. If the Bills’ opponent was the Miami Dolphins the Buffalo News would have “Squish the Fish” signs in the Sunday paper.

After the missed field goal that lead to the loss on January 27, 1991, the Bills returned to the Super Bowl year, after year, after year. No other team in NFL history has gone to four consecutive Super Bowls. Every year was the same. We would be excited. We would gather around the TV with a stuffed brown buffalo. We would have food and lots of it. (Yes, of course we had Buffalo wings!) We would watch the game, the half-time show, the commercials. And then the game would be over. The Bills lost again. We knew the game wouldn’t get done until late, so we would have planned to stay over night. I didn’t go to school on Monday. I would tell my classmates on Tuesday that I had been in morning. They were a little jealous of the day off. All I knew was that a day off from school is good. A day off from school after a Bills’ victory would have been better.

I hope the kids in New Orleans can enjoy their day off from school.