Not my practice blog, by Scott Knaster

Bizarre moments in baseball

Major League Baseball lets fans vote on a set of "awards" that includes a great category: Bizarre Moment. This year's nominees include the mind-numbing Barry Bonds RBI infield fly, the legendary Ruben Rivera "worst baserunning in the history of the game", which got him released from the team, and several wacky plays that didn't even involve the Giants, including a fly ball lost in the snow, a misspelled team name on a jersey, and Ozzy Osbourne destroying "Take Me Out To The Ballgame". For a good time, check out the videos of these plays.

Matrix screen savers

A couple of days ago I went out searching for a screen saver that does the Matrix "falling green code" thing. There are a bunch of them. Without searching for very long, I found the Red Pill for my Mac, which is pretty good. But I got one for Windows that really looks like the movie. That one even includes the movie's opening "call trace" sequence, which could really benefit from the zooming abilities of Mac OS X's Quartz Extreme, as well as the "Wake up, Neo..." sequence, in which you can replace Neo's name with your own.

I didn't try this one, which looks pretty good too.

SF Giants get new broadcasters

The Giants dismissed bad radio announcer Joe Angel (also known to Ceej and I as JASTFU [Joe Angel, shut up]) and replaced him with minor-league announcer Dave Flemming and veteran Greg Papa. The radio broadcasters of my favorite sports teams are really, really important to me. They have an enormous effect on how much I enjoy the games. When the Giants had Hank Greenwald, who retired several years ago, I loved listening. When he left for two years and was replaced by a dimbulb named Wayne Hagin, currently being inflicted upon St. Louis Cardinals fans, listening wasn't nearly as much fun. And the recent Jon Miller years have been very good, except during Joe Angel innings.

Dave Flemming will be the new everyday guy. Greg Papa will only do weekends. Flemming did a handful of games last year. They had two "rookie Dave" fill-ins, Flemming and Raymond. I'm have them confused in my mind -- I liked one and not the other -- I think Flemming was the one I liked. So I'm cautiously optimistic. He was the voice of the Pawtucket Red Sox, which is good, and he went to Stanford, which helps his local cred.

I'm not happy with the choice of Papa. He's not a radio guy and not really a baseball guy. He has a rapid-fire, monotone delivery, like an auctioneer. He's best known as the voice of the Raiders and Warriors. He has an unfortunate tendency to whine, scream, and pout when things are going against the home team. But he is very bright and well-informed, so maybe he'll recognize that he has to adjust, and maybe Jon Miller will help him.

Apparently, the Giants could have hired the sainted Hank Greenwald for the Papa gig and they blew it, due to a continuing feud started by the Giants front office. That's a tremendous shame.

The hirings of Angel and now Papa make me wonder if the Giants have gone tone deaf after the excellent choice of Miller. But really, Flemming is the key. We'll see how he does.

Heh, I seem to get more interested in stuff like this than I do in who's going to catch next year.

iTunes funnies in Foxtrot

Meet Ted

United has a new discount airline, and it's called Ted. Yep, that's right: Ted. It comes from the last 3 letters of "United". Before they announced the name, United started a buzz marketing campaign, including having "Ted" buy everybody dessert at the cheesecake factory one night and this site. They're gonna fly to Denver and a bunch of sunbelt cities, including Phoenix, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

First outdoor NHL game

The first-ever outdoor National Hockey League game is coming up. Here's a cool story about the guy who is creating the ice surface

WiFi in the park

I'm posting from a park! Well, not really, but I could be! A park in Los Gatos now has free public WiFi. Meet me there some time -- I'll be the nerd with the computer.

iPod Radio

Broadcom has introduced a chip that contains a full 802.11b transceiver in a tiny, low-power package. It would be cool if Apple figured out how to build an iPod with one of these inside. A WiFi-capable iPod would be like a 21st-century radio. You could play music from any WiFi-capable computer in range running iTunes -- great for dorms and offices. Throw in an FM tuner, and you've got a real iPod Radio. Maybe the iPod could even share an available Internet connection. Many commercial radio stations publish their "current song" on their web sites. If you're listening to FM, the iPod Radio could grab that info, talk to the iTunes Music Store, and let you click a "Buy" button for instant gratification. The next time you dock the iPod, you buy the song. Oh, and can it please sync my contacts and calendar too? And make my coffee in the morning?

Guy Clark

A couple of nights ago we went to see Guy Clark at beautiful Villa Montalvo. We're not country music fans, but Guy Clark is a special songwriter and a great performer. Parrotheads might know Clark as the writer of the Jimmy Buffett hit "L. A. Freeway", and Lyle Lovett covered his "Step Inside this House". Guy was casual and relaxed, careening through the second half of show according to the whims of the audience. He chatted with his guitar player, Verlon Thompson, who performed several of his own awesome songs. It was a wonderful evening.

Democrats vs. Macs

In last week's Democratic Presidential Debate, the candidates were asked the following vital question:

QUESTION: I'm a freshman at Brown University. And going to college this year, I was confused with an important decision. My mom advised me one way; my dad the other. And so my question for you all is -- and it's not quite boxers or briefs, but Macs or PCs?

COOPER: Congressman Kucinich, Mac or PCs?

MOSELEY BRAUN: Macs or PCs? I'll answer.

I like them -- my son has a Mac, he loves it. I use a PC.

COOPER: The question was actually to all of you.

So, Governor Dean, Mac or PC?

DEAN: PC. PC.

LIEBERMAN: Hand-held wireless. That's what I have.

(LAUGHTER)

COOPER: Somehow I knew you were going to say that.

SHARPTON: Mac.

KUCINICH: PC.

(APPLAUSE)

SHARPTON: A politically correct Mac.

KUCINICH: PC.

UPDATE: in a wacky and disturbing development, CNN now admits it planted the question. This doesn't seem like a question that anybody but a Mac user would care about, so I wonder exactly who planted it and why. Hello, Fox Mulder? (Thanks to Marshall Clow for this info.)

And it looks like the debate was even more scripted than that.

Full debate transcript in the Washington Post.