Category: Random Stuff

Buck Up, Buttercup!

On By In Write FieldIn Baseball, Random Stuff2 Comments

Cameron ShoresI have a complicated relationship with The Today Show.  Many things about it drive me nuts.  For starters, Ann Curry may be a very sweet person –  she can ask an evasive political candidate tough questions in such a non-confrontational way, he doesn’t know what hit him – but her hushed tones in human interest segments can be like nails on a chalkboard… especially when she sympathetically pats guests on the arm for emphasis.

Some Today segments are so devoid of social or educational value, I suspect that high school interns may have temporarily hijacked the studio. A recurring favorite:  Those crazy Duggars are pregnant again! Seriously?  I mean the show is called “19 Kids & Counting!”   When your teaser before a commercial is “The Duggars are here with a BIG announcement”, you don’t exactly need to issue a spoiler alert.

This morning, however, a warm-and-fuzzy Today story helped restore my faith in humanity.

At a recent Texas Rangers game, a foul ball was tossed into the stands and retrieved by a young couple, Shannon Moore and Sean Leonard.  Next to them sat three-year-old Cameron Shores and his parents.  Cameron already loves baseball so much, he sleeps with his glove every night, and he was NOT HAPPY for Shannon and Sean.  He wanted that baseball.  So Cameron threw a hissy fit.  Meanwhile the giddy couple beside him was oblivious, taking iPhone photos of themselves proudly holding up the ball.

Michael Kay, a Yankees announcer, aligned himself with Team Cameron right out of the gate.  “Oh my God. They can’t give it to the kid? That’s awful!  They’re rubbing it in the kid’s face.”  If you watch the video, though, you can clearly see that Shannon and Sean didn’t have a clue.

Now we reach the part of the story that impressed me so much:  Cameron is a lucky boy.  He has thoughtful, level-headed parents.  When he lost his marbles, his parents didn’t panic.  Instead, they immediately shifted him away from Shannon and Sean so that he didn’t spoil their fun, or guilt them into giving him their prize.

As they soothed their son, they explained that the game wasn’t over, and he might catch another ball later. “I never once thought that they should have given him the ball,” said Cameron’s mom Crystal. “We’re trying to teach him he doesn’t get everything every time.”

In fact, a few minutes after the TV cameras lost interest, Shannon and Sean realized why Cameron was crying and offered him the ball – and his parents politely turned them down.

I ask you, how cool are Cameron’s mom and dad?!?!  I wish more parents behaved this way.  Rather than assuming that the rest of us are put on this earth to revolve around their offspring, they actually thought FIRST about how his tantrum might affect OTHERS!  Unbelievable!

Later in the game, after Cameron had stopped crying, the Rangers organization sent out a ball for him.  Of course he was thrilled, but hopefully he also learned the lesson his parents were trying to teach; You may not get what you want, whenever you want it…. but patience is often rewarded.

On a slightly related note, my experience at the ballpark has been it’s not just the announcers who deride adult fans who hang on to foul balls – it’s the people sitting around them.  “Give it to a kid,” they shout.

Question:  Should grownups be expected to give up foul balls to youngsters sitting in their vicinity, even if they don’t know them?  (Being a fraidy cat, I think this will always be a hypothetical question for me.  I’m more likely to be vilified for ducking behind a little kid to escape being beaned by a pop up, than to catch one.)  That said, remember this young Giants fan?  If I caught that ball, Mr. Pouty wouldn’t have a prayer…

Fatal Encounters

On By In Write FieldIn Page and Screen, Random Stuff1 Comment

Let’s face it, most TV that isn’t live sports, Modern Family or Parks and Recreation is bad.  Really terrible.  Cue the new show “Fatal Encounters” on Investigation Discovery TV.  Spoiler alert!

Fatal Encounters tells the story of two people whose lives intersect … setting in motion a series of events that lead inexorably to murder. An on-screen clock counts down the final hours before the crime, so viewers can understand the critical decisions and twists of fate that lead to tragedy. The series also explores the forces, both psychological and environmental, that contributed to a senseless loss of a cherished life.

Murder by environmental forces?  What, like global warming?

So, to be crystal clear it’s not a feel-good show about down-on-their-luck people who triumph over adversity.   Viewers know going in that their protagonists will get whacked in just under 60 minutes, either because they make one or two bonehead decisions, or just because they are the unluckiest so-and-sos who ever lived.

Case in point, an upcoming episode called Deadly Deeds:

Genore Guillory has been helping out her struggling neighbors, the Skippers …even naming them as beneficiaries on her life insurance policy. But Phillip Skipper is actually in a white supremacist gang with plans to unload its racist fury on Genore.

Or this one, titled Wicked:

They couldn’t have been more different from one another.  Joel Leyva — 52-year-old family man; devout Christian. And Angela Sanford — 30-year-old social outcast; practicing Wiccan. Joel and Angela meet at a horse race track. They develop an unlikely friendship that ends in a mysterious murder.

Why on earth do we need a show like this?  What’s the point, to make the viewer feel powerless and terrified to leave the house?  I already feel that way, I don’t need a TV show to validate it.

I let loose my fair share of schadenfreude from time to time, when I see really bad people get what they deserve.  I mean, people like Kim Kardashian or José Canseco.   But why would I curl up on my sofa to watch a story about some poor, unsuspecting sucker stumbling blindly to his death, while a stopwatch runs in the corner of the screen?

There’s not even any suspense!  No, “Wait! Stop! Don’t charter that fishing boat/make your shady neighbors your life insurance beneficiaries/go to the horse track with that Wiccan!”  Save your voice.  If you are watching the show, you know the poor guy is toast.

I’m no Pollyanna, but I think I’ll pass on guaranteed death and destruction.  I’d rather channel surf for a possible no-hitter (MattCainMattCainMattCain), or follow the political escapades of Claire “I want my stop sign” Dunphy, or Pawnee’s waffle-loving Leslie Knope.  And then there’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Veep!  That one looks promising enough to re-subscribe to HBO!

Remember the Easter When…

On By In Write FieldIn Random StuffLeave a comment

Every Easter, I pull out this photo of my brother and me.  I was about two years old that Easter Sunday, and my brother was four.  This may have been the last time he held my hand for any reason, other than to drag me toward a swimming pool so that he could throw me into it.

We were church-going folks when I was little, which means my dress was probably my new Sunday-best and I was incredibly proud of it.

During this photo session my brother was stung by a bee, and somewhere my parents have a photo they snapped just as it was happening.  In it, he is holding his arm and howling.  Every year I wish I had a copy, because while I’m sure I was traumatized on his behalf at the time… I now think it’s one of the funniest photos in our family album.

Next year!

Lotto Redux

On By In Write FieldIn Random StuffLeave a comment

I’ve got the fever, and the only prescription is more cow bell.  No wait, that’s not right.  That’s from an old SNL sketch.  Actually, all I need to cure what ails me is six winning numbers worth $640 million (and growing).

Based on my blogging, one might think I am a serial lotto player.  Not true, actually.  But the last few drawings have been so huge, and I would really love to shake things up in my life… so I am courageously volunteering to test the hypothesis that enormous wealth doesn’t buy happiness.  This could take a while, so you can thank me later.

I now have 12 lottery numbers for tonight’s drawing on my person.  No real logic behind buying that many.  It was really driven by the amount of cash I had in my wallet ($12). 

As I have mentioned, I find people’s behaviors and rituals when buying lotto tickets pretty amusing.  Some folks have a standard number they always play, and despite being a quick picks person, I can understand that.  It’s a REAL no-brainer for anyone with five kids and a spouse — they use birthdays.  The added benefit of this system is, if your husband plays twice a week for years he can’t ever say he forgot to buy you a birthday gift.

I chuckle that stores that have sold winning tickets in the past have longer lines outside, when the jackpot is massive.  I bumped into a colleague this morning as I was leaving a bodega with tickets in my hand.  She pointed out that a few of her work friends bought their tickets there too, because it has sold winners before. Not sure I am on board with this theory, but who am I to judge since I am not a lotto winner?  Yet.

I also shouldn’t judge, because I have my own lotto superstition.  If I’m going all-in with the lottery, and buying more than one ticket, I don’t want to buy them all at the same store. This time I bought two tickets at a newsstand on Polk Street, five at a Seven-Eleven and five at the bodega near work.

I know this is completely illogical, and violates every probability law on the books.  I guess it just feels like I have more entries – and so, a greater chance of winning — because I have three tickets in my eager little fist, rather than one.  Makes sense, right?  

Now, there’s nothing left to do but wait.  And dream.  Last Friday I bought two tickets, and didn’t have even one correct number.  But I am an optimist at heart.  BRING IT!

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World

On By In Write FieldIn Page and Screen, Random Stuff1 Comment

Today I’m suffering from PMMS – Post Mad Men Syndrome.   Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 17 months, you know that last night was the Mad Men season five premier.  Two hours!  As one clever Twitter user noted, Don Draper and Tiger Woods made their comebacks on the same day… which could be a coincidence.  Or maybe not.

Some questions were answered right off the bat:  Don did indeed marry Megan the receptionist.  He seems to be suppressing his hound-dog ways, channeling a happy 1960s husband and father.  The fact that Megan has been promoted to the position of copywriter, despite her lack of applicable experience, may have something to do with this.  Don can now chase her around his desk, and order her to flash her bra, at will.  With Don, as we know, where there’s a will…

Megan’s probably thinking “if he must stare at cleavage at work, at least I can make sure it’s MY cleavage.”

There are other advantages to having your husband as your boss.  When he waltzes out the door at 5 p.m., leaving a pile of work for his subordinates, you get to leave too while casting a long, sad glance back at the rest of “the team” (i.e. Peggy) that says, “Hey, what can I do?  He’s my ride home!”

Megan is going to be a lot of fun, because it’s evident that Don’s narcissism and manipulative tendencies are already making her a little unbalanced.  When angry at Don, she cleans their apartment in her sexy black bra and panties while he watches.  You know, to PUNISH him.   This occurs the morning after she shimmied and serenaded him, Brigitte Bardot-style, in front of their colleagues.

Roger Sterling is still a womanizing lush, with a vicious wit.  When Joan arrives at the office to show off her (a.k.a. Roger’s) newborn son he shouts, “Where’s my baby?” before cheek-kissing Joan, who looks like she might faint at the prospect of her baby’s paternity being revealed.   He also skillfully talks Harry Crane into trading offices with Pete, for a mere $1,100.  Poor Harry never knew what hit him.

Aside from Megan’s promotion – and the fact that she still hasn’t had her teeth fixed — the biggest surprise may have been the fact that she knows Don’s true identify.  It was subtle.  During his post birthday party sulk he reminds her that, unbeknownst to the world, he’s actually been 40 for several months.  And later, she references Dick Whitman, which REALLY pisses him off.   This means there are now three women who know about Don’s sordid past – Faye, Betty and Megan.   All are, or will be (sorry, Megan!) women scorned.  Sneaky Pete Campbell also knows the score.

A few questions were left unanswered:

  • Where’s Mom of the Year, Betty Draper Francis?  Little mention is made of her, and I’m curious to see the state of her marriage after two years.
  • How are the Draper kids faring, post divorce?  Viewers got a quick snippet of Sally Draper as she smiled sweetly at Megan over breakfast.   Still waters run deep with that kid, so it’s hard to tell if she likes her pretty new stepmom… or if she’s planning to kill her in her sleep.
  • “Is it just me, or is the lobby filled with Negroes?” asks Roger Sterling.  Is it just me, or have we not heard the last of Civil Rights encroaching on Madison Avenue this season?  There was something very poignant about those graceful, earnest black women handing over their resumes for a job that didn’t exist.  It was hard to tell if any of the partners felt a twinge of… anything… at that moment.  But we all know Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Pryce will not integrate voluntarily, unless it helps sell cigarettes or baked beans.

We shall see.

(Lotto) Fever Pitch

On By In Write FieldIn Random Stuff5 Comments

This evening I picked up the latest ESPN Magazine, featuring Timmy Lincecum — and some other guy — on the cover.  It’s suitable for framing, so colleagues should expect to see it proudly displayed on my desk next week.

I felt a bit giddy afterward, and a little lucky too, so I did something unusual.  I bought TWO lotto tickets.  I often forget to play the lotto at all, and when I remember I usually only buy one ticket.  But tonight I wanted to double my odds…

Early in my career, I worked in the institutional retirement division of a large financial services company.   While there, I stumbled across a survey suggesting that around 3% of working Americans are relying on the lottery for retirement income in their golden years.   It wasn’t a joke.  That 3% was serious, and seriously deluded.

The guy in front of me at the newsstand tonight was apparently among the deluded.  He did not waste his money on magazines with cover photos of eye candy.  He bought 40 — that’s 4-0 — lotto tickets.   The funniest part was, the clerk thought he wanted four tickets, and asked for $4.  The customer looked at him like he was completely nuts.

He responded, “No man, I said 40 tickets.”   But his incredulous expression said, “Do the MATH dude!  There’s no WAY I could win with only four tickets!  I play for keeps so LET’S DO THIS.”

I reassured myself that buying 40 lottery tickets is a pretty bad financial plan.  I contribute to a 401(k) because I am responsible and I live in the real world.  But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming of what I’d do if I ever won the lottery, every time I play.

In case you are wondering, I would take the lump sum payment.

I would:

  1. Pay a lot of taxes.
  2. Quit my job.  (If you are wearing your surprised face right now, get over it.  Your boss can’t see you, you suck up.  You’d do the same thing!)
  3. Stalk homeowners on Liberty Street in San Francisco until one of them agreed to sell his house to me.
  4. Three words: Buy Season Tickets… in the Giants dugout AND on the team plane!
  5. Fund a memorial bench in Princess Street Gardens in Edinburgh, Scotland.
  6. Purchase a decent golf swing.  (Is that possible?)
  7. Make donations to my alma maters.  You know who you are.
  8. Give huge wads of cash to my parents… although I still doubt it’d erase my debt.
  9. Alert Planned Parenthood.  BIG check coming their way!
  10. Buy a pug puppy, and take him with me all over the world.

I’ll check the lottery numbers tonight, but I fear I have jinxed my chances of winning with all this blogging.  Which means it’s back to work on Monday. The Giants and pug puppy will have to wait.

Red Morphsuit

Get Your Morph On!

On By In Write FieldIn Random Stuff2 Comments

I thought I’d seen (and unfortunately, smelled) everything at my local gym. I’ve encountered 40something men in stinky fraternity t-shirts so thin and frayed you could read fine print through them, and women in get-ups so outrageously revealing I expected to see dollar bills sticking out of their oh-so-low waistbands. But today I observed something that sent me running to Google immediately after my workout: a personal trainer wearing a bright green Morphsuit.

I didn’t recall ever seeing a Morphsuit before, except on members of Blue Man Group. I knew the name only because it was printed in large letters across the trainer’s derrière. I assumed it must, in some way, promote more efficient burning of calories. But why did it need to cover her hands… and at times, her entire head?

Prepare to be amazed! Morphsuits provide no discernable athletic benefit. They are intended to produce nothing more than attention for the person wearing them. (Mission Accomplished!) That’s great if you are on stage at the Venetian in Vegas… but maybe not ideal if you are standing next to your client, who is paying $100/hour for the privilege of grunting and sweating her way through TRX training while you watch.

You’ll be relieved to know that you can “breathe, see and even drink through” Morphsuits, which explains how the Equinox trainer could wear one, and still pounce like a drill sergeant whenever her client appeared to be slacking during her workout.

The suits come in plain colors, and patterns such a camouflage and tie-dye. For Morphmen and Morphwomen who need to carry cash or a Muni pass, fanny packs are also available.

MLB baseball pitcher Brian Wilson, of the San Francisco Giants, arrives at the 2011 ESPY Awards in Los AngelesThere are flag Morphsuits (Alba gu brath, Scotland Forever!), and even a black tuxedo Morphsuit.  Wait, hang on. It’s all coming back to me. I HAVE seen a Morphsuit before… on Brian Wilson at last year’s ESPYs! The fact that I haven’t run across a one since July suggests that, even with B-Weezy owning the look, Morphsuits have failed to set the world on fire (despite being synthetic and highly flammable).

Still intrigued? You can consult the handy Morphsuit FAQs online. They address such burning concerns as how a wearer might zip/unzip the suit without assistance, and how to respond when someone asks to have his/her photo taken with you, while you are Morphed.

I hope the Equinox trainer takes her cue from Brian Wilson, and makes today’s Morphsuit experiment her last. She’s in great shape, but the suits are unforgiving to say the least. Unless you are a 6’2”, 200 pound closer with legs like redwood trunks, buns of steel and an arm like a cannon… a 100% Lycra body stocking with words across your backside is not a good look for you.

There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch. Really!

On By In Write FieldIn Random Stuff1 Comment

You may recall that I returned from Cactus League Spring Training earlier this week on a very delayed flight.  After only a few hours sleep, I dragged myself to the office and worked a full day, then returned home to bake two dozen cupcakes for a St. Patrick’s Day party at my office on Friday.

(Last year I was volun-told to lead the ‘engagement team’ at my workplace, because apparently it’s a proven fact that engaged employees work harder, call in sick less often and make fewer annoying demands of management than a whiny rabble of disengaged employees.  You may have something similar where you work, with a catchy name like the ‘Fun Council’. )

I placed the large aluminum food tray filled with cupcakes, covered in cling wrap, in my office’s communal refrigerator.  Later that morning, I discovered that someone had helped himself to the cupcakes, well in advance of the party, thinking he could outfox me by taking them from the BACK row of the tray.  Seriously?

Perhaps the culprit felt justified in his thievery because the food was for an office party.  Perhaps he expected to go to the party, and figured he would just take his cupcakes early.  Or maybe he works in the division that shares our floor and fridge — but doesn’t throw parties with delicious homemade cupcakes — so he needed a sugary way to fill the void that comes from lack of engagement.

Whatever.  I was sleep deprived and still coming off a sugar crash from eating leftover cupcake batter the night before… so I was outraged!  We live in a society and there are rules, people – most notably, that you should not eat food in the work fridge if you didn’t put it there.  That is stealing.  Only food left on the kitchen counter at the office is up for grabs.   Who the heck doesn’t know that?

I affixed a sternly worded admonition along these lines to the fridge, which was a topic of conversation on the floor for the rest of the day.  (Note to self:  Remove nasty note from office fridge on Monday.)

After the party there were abundant leftovers placed on the kitchen counter.  They were devoured within 30 minutes.  I can’t be sure, but once my cupcakes were gone I think someone may have licked the aluminum tray clean to get those last few shreds of fresh coconut.

What is it with free food at work?  I swear if you stood next to the elevator on a given afternoon and announced “free sandwiches and chips in the kitchen”… there are folks who would eat a second lunch simply because it was free!   In fact, I suspect that if you said there was free gruel topped with past-its-expiration-date Limburger cheese in the kitchen, you’d still get a few takers.

A note to my fellow office workers: You scan steal the spotlight, or my thunder.  But hands off my food in the fridge!

Hello, My Name Is Clarence and I’ll Be Your Hotspot Today

On By In Write FieldIn Random StuffLeave a comment
(Photo: hardlynormal.posterous.com)

If you attended the film, music and interactive festival South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas over the past week, you may have seen them.  Thirteen homeless men walking around wearing t-shirts that read, “I am a 4G hotspot.”  It’s the brainchild of advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s BBH Labs.

These homeless men – um, I mean these “hotspots” — were intended to provide internet connectivity to smartphone users at the festival, where usage can often overwhelm cellular networks.  They were paid $20 per day.  Repeat, $20 PER DAY, not per hour.  (BBH Labs suggested that festival goers using the service also pay these men $2 per 15 minutes of connectivity, as a donation).

According to CBS News’s “TechTalk”, the human hotspots included a man named Clarence from New Orleans who lost his house to Hurricane Katrina, and Jeffrey from Pittsburgh who suffers from the after effects of a traumatic brain injury.   This feels very wrong to me, even if Clarence said he enjoyed the work because he “likes talking to people”.

BBH Labs doesn’t see what all the fuss is about (and there has been plenty of fuss).  Proponents argue that this is an employment opportunity.  Wrong! An employment opportunity should pay at least minimum wage.  Otherwise, it’s called exploitation.  Would you hire a homeless person to spend the day mowing your lawn or washing your car, and only pay him $20… just because he’s so desperate he’ll accept it?  I hope not.

In response to criticism from bloggers, BBH Labs has compared human hot spotting to selling “Street News” and the like, but that’s wrong too.  Street newspapers tend to cover topics relevant to the homeless community, and are largely staffed by homeless (or formerly homeless) people who do the writing and printing.  When working at these newspapers, the homeless serve a human function and ideally learn a skill.

Making homeless people wear a dehumanizing label, and stand around while a bunch of yuppies check in via Foursquare – after which those yuppies pitch in $2 — is troubling.

If BBH Labs had a goal of generating free publicity, then this experiment has been a success.  (No publicity is bad publicity, right?)  But I sincerely hope this is the last any of us hears about human hot spotting.

Spring Training: Day One, The Bizarro World

On By In Write FieldIn Baseball, Random Stuff4 Comments

I love baseball, so I am not sure why I have never gone to Spring Training in Arizona before. Phoenix is a two-hour flight from San Francisco, the weather is phenomenal, and so far I am having a blast.  I just left my hotel bar, where I had cocktails and dinner outside in front of a fire while staring up at stars in a fogless sky.  I did not need fleece to stay warm.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the Bay Area… but I could get used to this.

Day one of Spring Training started out great.  I arrived at SFO early, and landed in Phoenix right on time.  I called Hertz from baggage claim – there was a reservation in my name, right?  Confirmed!

I arrived at the rental car terminal to find a long line. After a few minutes two men stormed away from the Hertz counter yelling, “They have no more cars!”  What does that even mean?  I was about to find out.

Apparently Seinfeld was not a sitcom.  It was, in fact, a reality show.  Remember the season three episode in which Jerry reserved a rental car, but he and Elaine arrived to find that there were no cars available? It was one of the best Seinfeld episodes ever.  Today I lived that episode.  Hertz was out of cars.

The “waiting list” for those of us with reservations was approximately 30 minutes.  Meanwhile, I had a ticket for a Cleveland Indians game and I was already late.  Serenity Now!  When pressed, Hertz offered each affected customer a $5 food voucher at a wrap kiosk in the building.  My wrap plus a drink cost $9, so I was not exactly left feeling whole.

When my name was finally called, I looked at the paperwork and pointed out, “There’s no mention of a GPS here. I preordered it.  Will this car have GPS? “  I was assured there would be a GPS.

There was no GPS in my car.

I headed back to the service counter.   It was mobbed with irate customers who had been directed to parking spaces that not only had no GPS – they contained no cars.  They were empty. I felt kind of guilty complaining about the lack of a GPS, since at least I had a car.  But I held my ground because it’s no use having a car if you have no idea where to drive it.

Two men in their 60’s nearly got into a fist fight over who deserved the next available car more.  (The Greatest Generation, keeping it classy.)  I was so stressed by the time my car (with GPS) arrived, I would have left my suitcase on the curb were it not for a kind, quick-thinking fellow Hertz victim I had been commiserating with, who chased me down as I started to drive away.

Nevertheless, I arrived at the Goodyear Ballpark in time for the ninth inning of the Indians vs. Diamondbacks game.  The entrance to the parking lot was already closed, but the security man reopened it – just for me – and let me park for free.  And the cute guy at the entrance to the park couldn’t scan my ticket, but let me in anyway.  “You are already so late!”  I somehow doubt this would have happened at AT&T Park.

The vibe was relaxed.  The Indians won.  I picked up a lot of Spring Training swag at the Team Shop, and thus am way out in front of holiday stocking-stuffer shopping for my family.

Tomorrow I will see the San Francisco Giants play the Chicago Cubbies in Scottsdale.  I can walk there so I’ll be early enough for photos and soft serve ice cream from the Mister Softee truck.

Did I mention that I love Spring Training?