Baltimore

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Along with seemingly half of Boston, I visited Baltimore with a bunch of friends this past weekend. The main attraction was seeing our beloved Red Sox take on the hometown Orioles at beautiful Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I actually felt bad for the 67 or so Orioles fans that were at those games because it was like Fenway Jr. all weekend. As I'm writing this, I don't really feel that bad because those 67 fans must have been feeling pretty good that their team snatched 2 of the 3 games after two blown saves by our newest addition Eric "Game Over" Gagne. As many older Sox fans tend to do, and for the comedic purposes of this post, I will immediately judge Eric Gagne after this past weekend's performance.

Eric Gagne is my third least favorite export from Canada after their geese and the Barenaked Ladies.

As I've already made quite clear in this post, there were Sox fans everywhere we went in the city, and boy did Baltimore submit to it. Stores in the crappy little tourist malls were prominently displaying Sox merch in their storefronts trying to appeal to the wave of tourist dollar that was infiltrating the city. That's the kind of move that only pussy third-rate cities do. I would expect that shit from the hometown of "The Drew Carey Show", not "The Wire". Just kidding Cleveland, you guys are alright. I just can't think of any shows that were/are based in Tampa Bay.

Princess Diana just won't die

I was flipping though the HD channels on my TV last night and came across a rebroadcast of the Concert for Diana on MHD. While I was in the supermarket the day before I saw some thick, shiny tribute magazine about her. I just don't get the whole celebrating the life of Princess Diana thing that just won't die (not a pun, and not meant to be in bad taste). It has been ten years since she passed, when is the world finally going to let go? Not to sound like a complete asshole, but why does anyone care anymore, especially Americans? Last time I checked we haven't had a monarchy controlling us for some 230 years.

I know she was a great humanitarian and deserves all the respect and admiration in the world, but she wasn't our princess. Mother Teresa was also a great humanitarian, and you don't hear shit about her anymore. There aren't any concerts or magazine dedicated to her. I think The only reason that Princess Diana still gets media coverage is because she was perceived as an attractive woman. She was alright, but not exactly my cup of tea, maybe a 7. And to further cover my ass, Mother Teresa was also not my cup of tea (damn it's hard to stay objective).

The only reason I remember where I was when I heard Princess Diana died was because I just came home after breaking my nose and being temporarily blinded in one eye from playing basketball. I still have a bump in the bridge of my nose due to a jump shot (line drive) coming up just short and thus glancing off the bottom of the rim and blasting me in the face. When I see that bump in the mirror, I don't think of celebrating Princess Diana's life, I think that I wish I had a vision problem as a child and invested in some Horace Grant sport goggles.

I'm pretty sure those could deflect a bullet

Booze Cruising 101

I went on a booze cruise recently for a friend's birthday and learned some very important lessons. Being the generous soul that I am, I've decided to write a primer for any potential booze cruisers out there with this being the prime booze cruising season. I originally planned on writing this the next morning, but I was too hungover to be a functioning member of society. Shit, I barely got to work in one piece. On with the tips.

1. Be on the list
I don't know anyone who's ever out of the blue decided to go on a booze cruise. Make the call and save yourself a couple bucks so you can spend more on alcohol.

Me - "Hey friend, what do you feel like doing this evening?"

Friend - "I don't know Jon. How about we go on a booze cruise?"

That has never happened.

2. Dress appropriately
Ladies, as much as I like you dressing like you're going to the finest club in town, in actuality you're drinking on a third-rate tour boat that probably hasn't been seaworthy for the better part of a decade. It's kind of like if your Catholic school was having a parents career day and your mom was a hooker. Not at all appropriate for the situation.

Way to stay classy Boston (note the plastic bench on the right).

3. Be on the deck during sunset
The real party doesn't get going until everyone gets a few drinks in them, so why not enjoy all the splendors of nature while getting drunk primed to dance?

Beautiful ...beer me Skipper!

4. Buy drinks two at a time, if not more
Once this thing gets going you'll be waiting in long lines to get a drink. Why not put some time between waiting in line and grab at least two drinks, which you probably do anyway if your a hardcore alki. Bonus tip: Seek out alternate bars on the boat. There was a second bar below deck and there was never a line, which still didn't stop me from grabbing two drinks at a time. And I don't have a drinking problem, I'm just devoted to spending the least amount of time in lines as possible as I'm ridiculously impatient. See, not an alcoholic.

5. Dance carefully
The best moment of the night wasn't the booty shaking contest, that was actually quite sad on so many levels, despite the birthday girl taking the win. It was when a couple of drunk girls decided to get the party started by trying to get people to start dancing. Before that it was kind of like a middle school dance with everyone standing around the dance floor, but not like a middle school dance because the boys and girls weren't on the opposite side of the boat. Anyway, how did they try? By dancing of course! However they did not notice in all their drunkenness that the boat was starting to hit choppy waters. To explain what happened next, I've come up with a simple equation that demonstrates this: drunk girls + high heels + choppy water = hilarious results. I'm not kidding when I tell you that one of them almost went overboard not once, but twice, and she was in the middle of the dance floor about 20 feet away from the side.

6. Don't/Can't dance? No problem!
There are a ton of other things to do on a booze cruise: watch drunk girls almost go overboard while attempting to dance, hang out on the deck, um... hang out below deck. That's about it. Have fun!

It's baaaack...

Now if they could only bring the short shorts back

Celtic Pride has finally returned to Boston with the acquisition of Kevin Garnett, and to a lesser extent Ray Allen, and I don't know how I feel about that. It's great that Boston is now a three-sports city (sorry B's but hockey sucks, especially you guys), but I feel a little cheated about the rampant bandwagon jumping the region is currently engaging in. I haven't been the biggest C's fan over the last 3 years, but at least I was still a fan. I watched at least half of the games, even during last years embarrassing phone-it-in attempt of a season to get a top two lottery pick. I was devastated and then infuriated when the C's ended up with the #5 pick in the lottery after wasting a season. Regardless of how I feel, Celtic Pride in full effect. While driving home from work yesterday I saw people on the street wearing C's gear: skaters, brothers, middle-aged white guys, old Asian ladies, even an Indian guy (I made those last two up but just because I didn't see it yesterday doesn't mean that they aren't out there). Actually, the only time I ever see people wearing C's gear in Boston is when they are going to a game at The Garden (Fleet Center), or if they're homeless and the only shirt on their back is a Larry Bird caricature t-shirt from 1991.

I couldn't find a picture of that shirt, but you get the idea [update: found it]

Well despite my earlier reservations, I for one welcome the return of Celtic Pride to Boston because The Garden has been a depressing place to see a game the past couple years (except when the Globetrotters were in town, that gag with the confetti bucket never gets old) and hope these moves result in banner #17 before the team bus has to make stops at the nursing home.

You knew that this was coming

Dog reviews Wolf

Today I'm going to switch it up a little. As I've stated before, I'm quite into music (who the hell isn't?), and I wanted this to be a music blog. The problem with that is that there are already a thousand better music blogs, so I decided not to put all my eggs into that basket. Starting today, I will do an occasional music review, but it won't be standard fare, so don't expect them that often. For my first music review post I have a guest music reviewer. I would link to my guest's blog, but I'm very sure that they don't have one. It will all make sense as you read the back story.

Friday night I was driving home and pulled up next to a police car at a stop light. As always when I'm driving, I had my portable music player cranking out the tunes in a random fashion. At that time Patrick Wolf's "The Magic Position" happened to be rocking out of my speakers (and I don't know if rocking would be the correct way to describe Patrick Wolf, but I digress). This police car was a K9 unit with the dog was riding in the back. I don't think the dog liked the sounds emanating from my windows because it started barking viciously at my car. I know that it didn't smell weed or anything because I've already covered that, albeit in a poor way.

So by removing drugs from the equation I came to the obvious conclusion that police dogs don't like Patrick Wolf. I know he's not everyone's cup of tea, and now I can confidently add police dogs to that list.

"A picture says a thousand words"

...and I couldn't come up with a thousand words, so you get this

Artist: Patrick Wolf

Song: The Magic Position
Album: The Magic Position
Released: February 26, 2007
Verdict: 0 Snausages out of 5

Special thanks to my guest reviewer, the police dog in the K9 police car next to me. If I were the reviewer I would have given the album 3½ Snausages because I dig most of it, but it just wasn't my time to shine today, and I don't rate things on the Snausage scale of excellence.