It's Been One Week, Volume 2

The first of our three days in New York turned out to be fairly miserable. 

We arrived at our hotel in Irvington, NJ to ominous looking skies. That's right, I said Irvington, New Jersey. You see, while shopping around for a great deal on Expedia I came across what appeared to be a REALLY great deal. Three nights for $170. So I looked on the map and it looked like it was pretty close to a NJ Transit train station. I figured this was going to be easy.
  
This turned out to be false. 

We were nowhere near a train station. After some investigating, we discovered that we could take the free hotel shuttle to the Newark Airport, catch the Air Train to the Newark NJT Station, and then take the train on into Penn Station in Manhattan. Which we did with relative ease, except for the part where it costs $15 to ride the train one way from the Newark Station to Penn Station. This was also the same price it was going to cost to get back. As we were going to have to do this for 3 days, my brain began cramping as I was figuring out just how much $$$ we were actually going to save by staying in Irvington.  

But we managed to make our way to Times Square to enjoy an afternoon of walking around the city. Of course, we exited the subway to a torrential downpour. We were meeting one of Chris' friends at the Public Library later that day, so a strolling we went in that direction. By the time we made it the eight or so blocks over there, we were drenched. Lucky for us, there was a Mets team store across the street where we were able to purchase a couple of Mets rain ponchos. We looked like a couple of bizzaro portly Jedi with a big NY logo emblazoned on our chests. I am thankful there are no pictures of this.  

We strolled back up to Times Square, because we had seen a Yankee store when we got off the Subway. We were inside all of about two minutes when we both became physically ill from seeing that much Yankee stuff and bolted for the door. We were stopped by one of the clerks who asked if we had any plans for the night. We told him that we were going to the Mets game and that we didn't have tickets yet and BINGO! He produced four tickets to box seats at Shea!! Our first break of the day!! 



Feeling pretty good about the score, we headed back towards the Library for a few pre game beers. Our euphoria ended pretty quickly upon our arrival as we learned that the game had been cancelled!!! 

So...pre game beers turned into rain out beers, and rain out beers seldom turn into good things. This was no exception. After consuming many fine beers at a cool little place called The Ginger Man, we called it a night around 11 p.m. and went back to Penn Station to depart back for the hotel.  

This is where it gets a little fuzzy. Evidently Penn Station is one honking huge place, with more than one entrance. Naturally, we didn't go in the one we'd come out of earlier in the day, and were completely lost. We walked around for what seemed like a good 30 to 45 minutes trying to find out where we were supposed to get our return tickets, what train we were supposed to catch, what stop we were supposed to get off at, etc.  

Note to self: Pay more attention in the future to how you got somewhere in a strange town if beer is going to be on the agenda that day. 

The events over the next hour are a little blurry, but somehow we made it back to the Newark Airport. Unbeknownst to us, there is a stop on the Air Train SPECIFICALLY for hotel shuttles. P4. I will never forget it. We did not know this though, and got off at Terminal C, where we had been dropped off that afternoon. We waited in line out in the rain with about 50,000 other people who were waiting for cabs out of the airport. Eventually we got a cab ($23, yay!!!) and when we walked in our hotel room it was 2:30 a.m.
  
I am pretty sure on the next trip I will not be in charge of making the hotel reservations. 

But you live and you learn (thanks Alanis!) and we were hopeful it would get better.

It's Been One Week, Volume 1

This time a week ago my buddy Chris and I were enjoying a lovely afternoon watching the Philadelphia Phillies take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at the most beautiful ball park in the majors, PNC Park. It's a great park with a great view of downtown Pittsburgh. (insert your own joke here, but downtown is actually a very nice area) 

There are cool statues all over the place, including Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and a collection of Negro League stars such as Cool Papa Bell, Josh Gibson, and Satchel Paige. 

There are cheap seats a plenty at PNC Park, and we got to see several of the Pirates stars of tomorrow shine. Paul Maholm pitched a complete game two-hitter and Nate McLouth hit two home runs as the Buccos won 5-1.

It'd be a crime if I didn't mention the awesome chili cheese fries I had from Pop's Potato Patch in Pop's Plaza. For $6.75 you get a bowl that is large enough to feed a family of eight and it's very tasty. I ate on it for close to an hour and ended up throwing half of it away. This is definitely the fare to check out on a visit to PNC Park.

I picked up some cool souvenirs, including a program, a scorecard, a cool little A-Z guide of the park, a pocket schedule, and an official Topps team set of 14 cards in the blister pack. (more about these cards at the end of the week)

Here's a little video I took.

It was a fantastic experience and a great start to our road trip. I can't wait to make my next trip back whenever the Tigers are in town!!!

Best 80's Albums No One Ever Listened To: Chapter 3

Returning from my vacation today, I found this old gem that gets regular play on my iPod. Alison Moyet was the lead singer of the early 80's pop band Yaz. As I was listening to this, I was trying to come up with something clever to say to properly relay just what exactly the sound and style of this album could be related to from it's time. The best that I could come up with.

Recipe for Raindancing:

1 heaping tablespoon of Annie Lennox

1 teaspoon of The Smiths

1/2 teaspoon of Dexy's Midnight Runners

Sprinkle with a pinch of T'Pau to taste

Well between there and here I did my usual looking up on wikipedia for artist background and discovered these glazed nuggets of information.

The album includes four single releases; "Is This Love" (co-written by the Eurythmics' David A. Stewart under his 'Jean/Manu Guiot' pseudonym), "Weak in the Presence of Beauty", "Ordinary Girl" and "Sleep Like Breathing", a duet with David Freeman of the band The Lover Speaks.

and

The Lover Speaks was the new wave duo of David Freeman (vocals), and Joseph Hughes (arranger, composer). They sang the original version of the song "No More "I Love You's"", covered by Annie Lennox in 1995 on her Medusa album, taking it to #2 on the UK singles chart.

So there you go. I'm not really that clever at all. But it's still a great album that is definitely worth a listen. 

Vacation...all I ever wanted.....

No silly, this isn't about The Go-Go's. I'm really going on vacation!

I'm leaving tomorrow with my pal Chris for a week long baseball road trip. The schedule looks something like this:

Sunday April 27: Philadelphia Phillies @ Pittsburgh Pirates

Monday April 28: Pittsburgh Pirates @ New York Mets

Tuesday April 29: Detroit Tigers @ New York Yankees

Wednesday April 30: Detroit Tigers @ New York Yankees

Thursday May 1: Pittsburgh Pirates @ Washington Nationals

I'll have all kind of stories, pics, and video when I return!

2007 SP Legendary Cuts

Want to see me smile? 

Put color pictures of HOFers and such on cards and I'm smiling like a new bride. 

Unfortunately the scan doesn't do the cards justice. The gold foil really pops off the card. 

I found three of these in a commons bin at my local card shop. I could buy commons like these all day.

I've tried to research to see how many are in the team set using ebay, and I think I came up with five. Since the cards I have are all numbered closely, I'm assuming that the teams have been grouped in this issue. Here is what I came up with.

33 George Kell

34 Hal Newhouser

35 Al Kaline

36 ???

37 Harvey Kuenn

I guess there could be a 32 and/or a 38 too. I don't know. Normally I look here first for team checklists:

http://www.teamsets4u.com/checklist.html

But alas, he doesn't have these listed.

Anyway, it's a great looking set featuring a bunch of great old time players.

2007 Upper Deck Spectrum

Tetris meets Tron.

I'm going to put about as much effort into this entry as UD did into this set.

15 Ivan Rodriguez

16 Magglio Ordonez

17 Carlos Guillen

18 Justin Verlander

I lied. I put in more.....

Best 80's Albums No One Ever Listened To: Chapter 2

I know what you are thinking and just stop right there. You just think you've heard it. Don't believe me? Ask the person sitting to your left if he/she has heard it. Now the right. Thought so. 

Face it, it you are under 40 you certainly didn't buy this album when it came out. You just remember hearing In The Air Tonight some 84 billion times during the first season of Miami Vice several years after the album was released in February of 1981. And no, it is not a song about Phil Collins watching somebody watching somebody else drown. In fact, it's a song about someone catching their lover cheating on them.

See, Old Phil was going through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e during this time in his life, and channelled that into the lyrics on this album. But despite the dark tone of the album, Phil's debut solo recording blends a vast assortment of musical styles to pop perfection.

Phil takes us on a roller coaster of love and loss, from the sweet sultry ballad This Must Be Love and the bittersweet remorsefulness of If Leaving Me Is Easy to the upbeat funky ditties Behind The Lines and Thunder And Lightning. He had also had minor hits with Misunderstanding and I Missed Again that have held up quite nicely.

So go ahead and treat yourself to an album that still sounds as fresh today as a breezy spring afternoon. Take that leap and dismiss everything you remember about Phil Collins and hear him for the first time before he became a Top 40 hit making machine.