Little things

Sometimes, I get amused by things that I never imagined I’d be amused by. Tonight, this happened. I was walking out to the car from the restaurant we ate in, and I noticed that the streetside parking meters looked different. I took a closer look and it turns out that all the old meters were replaced with digital meters that you can pay for with coins and your credit card. How convenient! You just key in the number of hours you want to be there, swipe your credit card, and leave. I love it. Really, let’s face it. Who carries around a bunch of coins anymore? I’m lucky if I can find a few quarters in my little change compartment in the car. Running a credit card through the meter is much easier. Nice!

I’m going to a Yankees game tomorrow night! I scored some really cheap tix and the seats are not on the top row of the stadium. These seats are worth at least $50 more than I paid. Stubhub comes through! Hopefully, I’ll get to see CC Sabathia win his 20th game in a season for the first time in his career.

Behind again…

What a surprise…once again, a lot of time has passed since my last post. I’m starting to wonder if I should just give up on this page. Part of me is saying that I should because I never post, but another part really wants to have the forum to write about whatever I want when the inspiration strikes. Another nagging voice is telling me that writing is good for me since I will soon be writing a series of self-reflective essays that will help propel my career forward. Let’s see where this goes.

My last post was about a month and a half ago. Recapping every single relevant life and news event since then would take up a lot of space and require a lot of time, so I’ll try to cover the basics for all my major categories. In my general (uncategorized) category, I’m happy to announce to all 2 of you that read this that my bf landed a really great teaching job. He is very excited and I am proud of him for all the hard work he put in to get there. To celebrate his success, we went on a cruise to the Caribbean and had a wonderful time. Pictures are on facebook. What else? I just started my new externship. So far, it has been a slow start with most of the time being spent learning new neuropsychological tests. On a more somber note, a close family friend of ours passed away last week. He was a stand up guy. He always put others before himself. He was warm, caring, passionate, and friendly and he will truly be missed.

Onto the world of android. I don’t even know where to start. I’ll have to keep this brief. The Droid X came out a little over a month ago and it is a sweet phone. It is just a tad too big for my petite hands. The Droid 2 just came out last week and while many things were improved, there were some disappointing aspects of it too. I think the froyo OS still has a few bugs and flash needs some tweaking. Also, when speaking into the phone, you can hear yourself in the earpiece almost as if you’re speaking into a microphone in front of an audience. Plus, there’s a really strange bug where things are laggy/buggy when the phone is plugged in vs when it’s off the charger. Verizon just put out a patch, but it mainly addressed other issues. In addition to Motorola phones arriving on the scene, Samsung’s Galaxy S series hit the markets on AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint and Verizon are up next. I’ve tried out both the Vibrant (T-Mobile) and the Captivate (AT&T) and was really impressed with what I saw. Samsung’s UI makes the phone very intuitive to use and the phones are both very responsive. Of course there are a lot of rumors going around too. My baby (the Incredible) was supposedly supposed to get froyo a few days ago and that didn’t happen. Then there are a bunch of rumors about android based tablets coming out later in the year to compete with the ipad. We’ll see how that goes. I may want to consider getting one of these for myself if the price is right and I feel like one of them would suit my needs.

I haven’t talked about Glee in a while on this blog. I’m still hoping to write a couple paragraphs after each episode of the upcoming season though. We’ll see. But for all you Gleeks out there, the season 2 premiere is on Tuesday, September 21st at 8 PM. There has likely been a lot of Glee news and spoilers this summer, but I honestly haven’t followed much of it. I’m sure I’ll get back into my obsession once the new eps air!

Websites. I haven’t done one of those in a while. Hmmm. That I’ll probably have to save when I have enough time to sit down and do the research. I want to make sure it’s worth the read.

Finally the yankees. They’ve been playing ok lately. The pitching rotation is treading on thin ice right now, which isn’t good. Pettitte is injured, and Burnett and Vazquez stink. I’m surprised they’re even winning as much as they are. A-Rod just went on the DL today. Luckily, other people are hitting and bailing out all our stinky pitchers right now. Nick Swisher is having a great season. I’m happy for him. Robinson Cano should be the AL MVP. I know I’m biased but the guy has had a monster season. Jorge Posada is declining in his ability to catch. Even as recently as a few years ago, he had solid numbers throwing out baserunners. Now, any old person can steal on him. Additionally, a lot more gets by him and he has made some really questionable decisions with the ball in play. Brett Gardner has really become a solid member of the team. With the exception of a couple of slumps, he has played well all year. Phil Hughes has emerged as a reliable starter and even when he gets beat up a little, he still manages to keep the team in the game. Joba Chamberlain stunk himself out of the setup man role. That’s disappointing because when he first came up, he was unhittable. The Yanks got some quality people at the trade deadline for basically nobody in return. One quick comment on Kerry Wood. I saw him dominate the yanks in 2003 in a 1-0 matchup (that the Cubs won) between him and Roger Clemens, who lied to Congress (idiot). Ever since that game 7 years ago, I wanted him on the Yankees. I didn’t even care that his ERA was 6 something when they traded for him. He’s Kerry Wood, a fierce guy that has a lot of talent and who can really help the bullpen if he pitches well.

Alright, I tried to address all of my major categories. Ideally, I won’t have to play catch up all the time but with my track record, who knows. I really do like writing and I thought doing a blog would be a fun way to put my thoughts out there, but it has just taken a back seat to other things. Maybe I can integrate it into my routine once the school year starts up again. My schedule will be varied by day, so any constant would be welcomed.

Have a good night!

ALCS bound

It’s official! Last night, the Yankees finished up a sweep of the Minnesota Twins to advance to the ALCS. I’m glad they took the minimum number of games because it’s really nerve-wracking when the other team starts to think they have a chance. There were a lot of positives in this series. The starting pitching was outstanding. You can’t ask for much more. The hitting left me concerned though. Aside from A-Rod, nobody else did too much. In fact, I think the team only hit around .225 for the series. That is not going to cut it for the championship series. Compared to the Angels, the Twins starting pitching is nothing and the Yanks didn’t muster much offense against them. So needless to say, playing the Angels is going to be a big challenge. However, I firmly believe that if the Yanks can beat the Angels, then they have a great shot at winning the World Series because neither the Phillies nor Dodgers are as threatening as the Angels. I’ll save my full analysis for when the time comes. For now, I just hope my boys are resting up and getting themselves ready for a battle.

I could tell you about my upcoming week, but it’s nothing exciting. The weekends are where it’s at! But let me make a few TV comments. First of all, for anyone who watches Hell’s Kitchen, the season finale is tomorrow night. Tomorrow’s episode will definitely be my last. The show has turned into a repetitive, boring, cursefest. I used to find this entertaining, but when nothing changed from season to season, it got old. On the other hand, Top Chef is really heating up. We’re getting down to the really good cooks. Also, anyone who doesn’t watch Glee should seriously consider making the time for it. It is a definite winner of a show.

Have a good week everyone!

Yankees galore! (Plus WOW)

Welcome to Thursday! You guys are lucky today because I’m going to give you a double post in one. I’m going to make some comments on the Yankees victory last night and also provide the WOW, which is my favorite Yankees blog to follow. Remember how I said I’d be talking about the Yankees playoff run? Yes you do. And remember how I said I wanted to avoid negative emoticons? Well, so far so good even though they’ve only played one game. Let’s hope it stays that way. Anyways, let’s get to the game!

C.C. Sabathia pitched very well last night. Was it the best I’ve seen him? No, but he battled the Twins through 6.2 innings and held them to 2 runs, which should have only been 1 run (I’ll get to that…). I think there are 2 important things to consider with him. First of all, when he is on the mound, his teammates truly believe they will win. The hitters don’t have to worry about playing catch up all game. They can relax and do their thing. Secondly, C.C. is the first high profile pitcher in a long time who has come to NY and actually succeeded in his first year under the big lights. Think about guys like Kevin Brown, Javier Vasquez, and even Randy Johnson. These guys were brought to NY to lead the pitching staff and they all floundered. C.C. came in, completely dominated, and put himself in the running for a Cy Young. This guy is the real deal.

Derek Jeter: is there anything this guy can’t do? He just continues to be clutch. It’s expected every year and he fulfills expectations every year. After the Twins took the lead in the 3rd inning, Jeter came up in the bottom of the inning and smacked a homerun to left field (something unusual for him) to tie the game. That was the game changer. The Yanks were back in it, the crowd was excited, and C.C. buckled down.

Surprisingly, A-Rod had a good game last night as well. For the last however many years, he was just a complete disaster in the postseason. He was the complete opposite of Jeter. However, he drove in 2 important runs last night, and he got both RBI’s with 2 outs. The Yanks need to be able to count on him for production and at least for now, he has silenced the critics. Let’s see if this continues.

Something that may get a little overlooked is the bullpen situation, at least in the first series. Adding Joba to the mix automatically increases the quality of arms out there. Joba has always been very solid out of the pen because he can take on the mindset of just attacking hitters and not worrying about conserving energy to use over 6 or 7 innings. He’s just a different guy. With him, Hughes, Coke, and Rivera out there, it’s possible to shorten the game to 5-6 innings (assuming the starter pitches well). The only negative thing is that if the Yanks make it to the ALCS, they will likely need a 4th starter, which would be Joba. He can’t start and be in the bullpen, so by him starting, the bullpen takes a hit. We’ll see what happens. If only we had a healthy and effective Chien-Ming Wang right now…

Let me cover the website of the week now. I’d like to direct you all to The Lohud Yankees Blog (yankees.lhblogs.com). In my opinion, this is the best Yankees blog out there. It is updated several times per day with all sorts of news…and I mean anything that’s relevant. If someone is injured, it’s on there. If something happened to a player’s family member, it’s on there. If someone donated to charity, it’s on there. You get the gist. And of course, all the big stories are on there too. The guys who run it post pre-game news, do live blogging during the game, and have lots of post-game coverage as well. This site is very comprehensive. In order to see just how comprehensive it is, you really have to check it out. Any devoted Yankees fan will love this blog. My descriptions don’t do it justice. Just go take a look!

P.S. Carl Pavano is scheduled to pitch game 3 of the ALDS. I hope the Yankees destroy him!

Yankees!!

My boys, the New York Yankees, have officially won the American League Eastern Division and have secured home field advantage throughout their playoff run!! Go boys! I have to say, I’m excited. Usually, I restrain myself from commenting until the end, but this team has been great all year. They’ve managed to win 100 games so far (with 6 left to go) and they’ve also managed to avoid getting into a huge rut at any point during the season. They have proven to be a resilient team and that’s the kind of team that will hopefully continue their dominance as they enter the post-season. Once the playoffs begin, you can expect at least a few posts from me that will address the Yankees’ progress. Hopefully, you don’t see me posting any emoticons that look like this:  > : O    or     :/    or               I’m optimistic right now. Hopefully the magic continues!

While I’m here, I might as well wrap up this past week…although things were basically status quo. I had externship on Tuesday, classes on Wed and Thurs, and externship again on Friday. However, as I woke up at the ass crack of dawn on Friday, I pulled a muscle in my neck that left me in a ton of pain and the inability to turn my head to the right past about 45 degrees. It was bad. No amount of massaging, resting, or pills could do anything. Unfortunately, it’s just one of those things that has to heal on its own. It still hurts now when I turn my head to the right, but the pain is down to a 4 out of 10 (from about 8-9) and I have most of my mobility back. What an annoying injury! Luckily, my weekend was low key and since it rained today, it’s not like I had many options anyways. A couple pieces of news though. My parents bought a brand new iMac for use as a family computer. Although the decision was made quite quickly, it turned out well. I’m typing on it as we speak. As much as I wish the process of getting this had been different, I’ll be the first to admit that this machine is pretty freakin cool. Also, my mom got a brand new blackberry. I’m very jealous. I want her phone, but I don’t have an upgrade until next March. By then, there should be at least one other new model to choose from. It will be worth the wait.

Brothers and Sisters premieres tonight so I’m gonna catch that. I’ve decided to drop Desperate Housewives from my line up. It hasn’t done anything to keep my attention. Also, for those of you who haven’t checked out Glee or Modern Family, those are a couple new quality shows worth looking into. Peace out for now!