KJ

Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum wins the Cy Young Award.

Maybe it's because, in an otherwise dismal time to be a Giants fan, Lincecum is a bright shining light of hope for the future -- and a lot of fun to watch right now. And it feels good to know that the rest of the baseball world sees it, too.

Anyway. Woo hoo!

First, Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, but most especially to peachespig!

Okay. Time to distract myself from this absolutely horrible baseball game (Giants down by 4, stupid anemic offense) by posting about my weekend.

amybang stayed a few days after the concert; she met me Friday after work and we went to see Pirates. Since it's been reviewing so poorly I went in with very low expectations -- I sat back, turned my brain off, and settled in to enjoyed a fun ride. Not long into the film, I found myself sitting forward and turning my brain back on. In the end, I found that I liked it rather a lot. Certainly better than the second film; it took all the threads that the second and even the first had left hanging, tossed a few more balls in the air, and then tied everything up in a way I found quite satisfying.

Interesting (if long) Henry Jenkins blog entry on Pirates 3 and why the critics got it wrong here. Some spoilers in there.

Yesterday ended up really busy. My mom had asked a few weeks ago whether she could come down and spend a day with me in the City. Then my new boss announced a retirement party for my former boss that same night. And then I learned that concertinette was flying into town, and Saturday afternoon might be my only chance to see her. So I choreographed my day carefully: after a quick breakfast, amybang and I picked up my mom, we spent a few hours hanging out at the Ferry Building and at home, and then I dropped her back at the bus station just in time to head for the airport. Then we did the Berkeley thing for a couple more hours (including crepes, a dangerous bead store, and wandering campus a bit), after which they gave me a ride to the party at my new boss's (huge, gorgeous, oh-i-am-so-jealous) house in the Berkeley hills. A fun day, but so busy.

So today, after dropping amybang at the airport this morning, I get my lazy sitting around the house day. With laundry. And poorly-played baseball. (But at least that part is finally over, and I can stop cringing at the television.)

I don't think I've ever been so glad to see a baseball season end.

( Cut for whining and sports talk. )

P.S.: Go Mets! Go Detroit (because I love a worst-to-first story)! Go
everyone-who-is-not-the-Yankees-or-the-Dodgers! If we end up with a Yankees-Dodgers World Series, I think I may have to root for the Apocolypse, and we wouldn't want that, would we?

On impulse, I cruised by the SF Giants website to see if there were decent seats left for tonight's game. Lo and behold, there were. So we got them. And we went.

( Baseball blather )

It was fun. I don't have plans to go again until my annual family game with my parents and uncle in August (or maybe it's September), but I should try to get to at least one more.

Ganked from peachespig.

Guessing Game

Post a list of up to 20 books/movies/anime/TV shows/video games/etc. that you've had an obsessive fannish love of at some time in your life. Have your friends list guess your favourite character from each item.

I wouldn't say I have an obsessive love of most of these, but they are all things I like or have liked an awful lot. Coming up with the list was actually a fairly interesting exercise. I can't believe I actually got 20. Some of these are pretty obvious; in others, my choice may seem more obscure.

( Here's the list. )

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim?

Yeesh.

It is not possible to sing along to a jazz band performance of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".

It's been one of those rare days in San Francisco -- gloriously hot. One of the few things I don't like about living here is that we don't get really hot summers. I can live without the humidity of Iowa and the East Coast, but the heat I miss. So I relish the few heatwaves we get every year. This is our second -- the other was an unseasonably hot week in March, which coincided perfectly with my first week of unemployment. Tonight, I was perfectly comfortable walking home from my parking garage at 10pm in shorts and a t-shirt. Anyone who knows SF summer weather will understand how miraculous this is. Weather reports suggest that tomorrow will be the last day of the high temperatures, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

Caught the last couple innings of the Giants game while I was driving home from chorus tonight, a win for once. I've been starting to worry that San Francisco had somehow angered the baseball gods, but perhaps tonight's victory, over the Braves no less, is a sign that they have been appeased, at least for now. It is never wise to get on the wrong side of the baseball gods. Of course there are baseball gods -- why else would we have rituals where we provide burnt offerings of sausages and hot dogs, otherwise known as "tailgate parties"? It's like Anya said on the Thanksgiving episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: "To commemorate [an] event, you cook and eat an animal. It's a ritual sacrifice. With pie." Only in this case it's with beer and chips. Okay, maybe it's stretching it to call a hot dog an animal. But it was part of an animal. Once. Partly. If you buy good ones.