Ramblings of a Technology Addict

Tuesday, April 29, 2003

Attendance Problems...

Baseball Musings has a bit up about stadium attendance being down this year. I'm really not all that surprised to tell you the truth. I decided I couldn't afford my season tickets in Baltimore this year, and had to give up my seats in right field that I so desperately loved. Time to cinch up the belt a bit, I said. But I realized the other day that it's not that I've got less money, it's that the trip to the ballgame is so damned expensive.
Tickets: $20 a piece to sit in the outfield.
Hot Dog: $4.25
Beer: $6ish
Soda: $4.50
If you look at it, I spent between $8 and $15 a game for each time I went. I decided I didn't want to pay that to see a third rate team play ball. Yes, Mr. Angelos, your Orioles aren't any good. They have rays of hope, in 'drigo Lopez and Jorge Julio, but you waste them by not building the team around them. Instead, you waste all of our time and hard-earned money by creating a team that last year couldn't even win more games than it lost. And you wonder why attendance is down this year? Your team sucks, build a ballclub that puts on a good show day in, day out and wins more than they lose and you stand a chance at getting me back in Baltimore. Because I won't pay $30 a week to watch the Orioles lose, and do so in an embarassing progression of bad play and bad at-bats.
Except that's not what this is about, really. I suspect that Angelos in fact isn't trying so that he can play poor little owner when it comes time to talk about DC baseball this fall. They're talking about building a brand new stadium downtown over on New York Avenue here, and likely I would sell my car to buy season tickets. Yes, I'm that desperate for baseball. I realize that this stands directly in opposition to my previously stated belief, as it is likely that the new Senators will likely spend a season or two sucking, however, since I won't have to expend a ton of effort getting to the ballpark, it becomes an impulse buy. As Apple removed the barriers to effective music buying, so now the new Senators would remove a barrier to getting me to the ballpark.
So, I suppose that's why I'm getting my Baseball fix on DirecTV instead of live and in person. It's much cheaper to watch at home.
2:51:43 PM  comment []

Fleshing it out...

Sour Bob has a really nifty piece on the realities of dating and relationships, and I found it especially interesting. Relationships begin with "Hi" after all, and they don't really ever end, whether you want them to or not. There are still little pieces of yourself that you can identify as missing and belonging to someone else, much like a CVS repository.
*sigh* I am such a geek. I so did not just compare relationships to a Unix environment.
There are always small steps at the beginning, more and more sharing as your grow closer and older. I find myself coming back to Sondheim's Company more and more frequently, the struggles that Bobby had with dating and dysfunctional marriage and not wanting to let go of self to find what was next. I feared I'd be nibbled to death by ducks, losing myself piece by piece. But what I found instead was that for each piece I gave up of my own, I replaced with a part of someone else. I suppose that's what had happened all along. I pick up vocabulary and mannerisms, much like a chameleon does, as a self-defense mechanism. I find my lexicon cluttered with words no longer my own, and my mannerisms smacking with those of people long since disappeared from life like so many fading shadows.
But sometimes, you have to just follow Bob's advice: To hell with it, let's dance.
2:17:37 PM  comment []

I'm a Music Addict.

So, I realize that the tagline on my site proclaims me to be a technology addict, this is true, however, I am also a Music Addict. Which is why this new Apple Music Service spells death for my wallet. I'm not complaining about readily available music, in fact, quite the opposite. This will make me buy more music. Lots more. Lots lots more. The good thing is that it's cheap, the bad thing is that it adds up.
Steven Frank of Panic covers it pretty well in his blog today, and he's right, suddenly music is an impulse buy for me again. Thank you, and Curse you, Apple.
10:41:43 AM  comment []