trainwreck

you've probably already seen it, but it's so awful, you have to watch it again.

the pretend world of sports

the time is upon us when students are heading back to school, the blazing heat of summer is close to breaking, stores are bringing in fall clothes...and oh yeah, fantasy football is underway.

now, i have learned to tolerate - even mildly enjoy - the everlong season of football. i didn't grow up in a house where football was a big deal, but have learned later in life that most men live for it. now that i've endured a few seasons of it, i realize that there is no arguing with a significant other about whether or not he's going to watch the games that weekend. i've even learned what's going on, and can actually follow a game now and then.

and now, pre-season has started...it's only a short time before every sunday afternoon, saturday afternoon, monday night, occasional thursday night, possibly tuesday night is football. and it doesn't end there.

i used consider myself lucky because my significant other is mostly obsessed with college football. (i don't think he reads this much, but he would appreciate a "go blue" here) so i used to not have to deal with many sunday pro games. BUT - fantasy football took that away from me.

because of the fantasy team, we have to watch every game that is televised in order to check in on the players on his team. and i can't help but think about the fact that it is FANTASY - which means is 100% not real. fake teams, fake plays, fake scores, and in the end, a fake winner. fake fake fake.

and i get criticized for watching american idol...

i'm a tropical storm!

i found out yesterday that a current tropical storm and i share the same name. upon hearing this, i was so honored that the meteorologists of the world think so highly of my name that they are willing to add it to the list of hurricanes. but i came to find out that it was already on the list, and i should have known this much earlier in my life. you see, hurricane names are set alphabetical lists, alternating male and female names, that rotate every six years. names are used so that weather stations can communicate quickly about the storm, instead of using latitude and longitude identification. there is a pacific list and an atlantic list. so there was actually a tropical storm erin in 2001, but i guess it never got big enough to make news. (apologies for the outdated links - they serve their purpose though)

so basically, either you are a hurricane or you're not...with the exception of the newly added names from time to time. when a storm is particularly devastating, they retire the name and replace it with a new one- i.e. katrina & hugo. (retired names)

and, another little tidbit of cocktail trivia - storms used to all be named female names until 1978, when the world meteorological organization starting incorporating male names as well. if that's not equality, i don't know what is.

and that is the science lesson for today, class.

**fall softball game 1 tomorrow night. team name: knocked up - because three of our players are benched due to impregnation. pretty funny, huh.

surface of the sun

after a long weekend of staying indoors for fear of melting upon entering the sunlight, i had my first experience with wii. yes, i was a wii virgin until this weekend. and boy, was it a good time. i'm literally sore from playing so much. if i had a couple hundred to blow right now, that's what i'd get.

anyways, as i realized just how hot it is in st. louis right now, i began to wonder if this is the hottest it's ever been. apparently, it is not. the record high for the area was July 14, 1954, when it reached 115 degrees.

and what is the record high in the u.s., you ask? greenland ranch, california, with 134°F on July 10, 1913. that's just crazy. and they didn't have air conditioning. well, actually - it's in the middle of death valley, where no one lives...so it doesn't really matter. but either way, that's freaking hot.

so i'll be enjoying sitting inside working all week as the temps reach 108...but then dying on the ball field as fall softball starts on friday. we finished spring league at 5 and 5, and won $50 to hooters. just what i wanted.

welcome back, welcome back, welcome back

great news for folks in st. louis who missed their buddy - rick ankiel was called up this week. enjoy this:



and in another fun cards story, apparently the announcer for san diego got caught this week saying something on air that was supposed to be muted. i love it when stuff like this happens. i'll set the scene...san diego's losing bad, it's hot as balls in st. louis. he made a comment about cards fans "driving back to the ozarks in their el caminos" first. then he muted his microphone, to tell the guys in his production van (who are st. louisans, keep in mind), "i'm done with this place...i'm so tired of losing here...it's hotter than shit. we get our asses kicked every time we come here...i'm not coming here next year." but his partner's mike picked up the whole thing.

so 98.1 in st. louis got this guy on the radio the next morning, and i have to say - he really was pretty funny. he explained that he was just trying to get on the guys from st. louis that make digs at him because of the cards beating san diego in post season so many years. and the comment about the ozarks and el caminos...i'm pretty sure that's true.

well, friends - that's about all i have for today. have a good weekend folks. drink lots of fluids and don't stay in the sun too long. you might melt.

screen your calls, channel 5

hee hee hee...



the funnier part is that this morning on the radio, they actually got this guy to call in to explain how it happened...basically this guy and his friends were sitting around watching saturday night live, and were annoyed that channel 5 changed programming to the breaking news of the people trapped in the arch. so they kept calling in to get snl back on air, and finally someone who was supposed to be screening asked, "are you inside the arch?" and he just went with it. that someone probably is looking for work now...

getting picked on and crazy stories

i had a friend tell me today, "i just love giving you shit." is that a good thing or a bad thing? i mean, on one hand, it means that this person knows i can handle a little teasing, that i won't get my feelings hurt or get offended. but - on the other hand, that means that they think they can just razz the hell out of me, because i'll take it.

just a few weeks ago, i was out to dinner for work with a group of people. some of them were vendors in from colorado, some that i work in the office with everyday. either way, most of them are guys, and they took to teasing me during dinner about everything. i just laughed, because, well...most of what they said was funny. but then, my boss's boss says, "erin, it's just so easy to pick on you because you are good-natured about it."

so because i'm nice, and don't throw a hissy-fit when people give me shit, all of a sudden i'm the token "pick-on" girl? what the f? that is totally not fair. wouldn't it make more sense to pick on the people who are mean and rude and deserve it? instead of the people who are innocent?

so i have decided. i'm going to start completely overreacting when people tease me. i'm going to go ape-shit crazy over every little thing that someone says that could possibly offend me in any way. just once, i want to do something really nutty - like burst into tears and run out of a meeting. that'll show all those people who "love to give erin shit." jerks.

on another note - i heard this really crazy story the other day about a dead dog in a duffle bag that got stolen off a train. it was really nuts. but it got me thinking about those kinds of stories that you hear, that are just so whacko that you can't help but tell people, whether they know the people in the story or not. i just thought of another involving chapstick and a cat butthole. so funny. anyways, that point is - are these stories, or more like urban legends? are they such good stories that they just keep circulating through people, like a never-ending chain email? think about that. weird.

have a good weekend - i'll be playing softball tonight and visiting the land of lincoln tomorrow. good times :)

why i hate charter

i moved a few months ago, and in the process, cancelled my cable services with charter communications. they instructed me that i would get a prorated bill, gave me the total amount i would owe, and that was that. or so i thought.

once my mail forwarding took effect, i received two bills (both on the same day - thank you to the always-efficient united states postal service) from charter, for $0.63. yes, you read that right...63 cents. the balance had been carried over for two months, because the bill didn't reach me early enough. they probably spent $0.50 on each piece of mail, so they just lost 37 cents by billing me.

so i thought to myself, it would be silly to write a check for 63 cents, surely i can pay online or over the phone. i mean a check itself probably costs at least $0.25 and a stamp is $0.41, and i can't justify spending more than the amount of the bill just to get them their payment.

i got online to pay the bill, only to find out that the site cannot locate my account number, since i cancelled my services two months ago. so i called 1 800 GET CHARTER (which i strongly advise avoiding if possible) and spoke with a customer service representative. she assured me that i could pay the bill over the phone, no problem. but there would be a $1.99 fee for speaking to the rep to pay it. um...what? you're going to charge 3 times the amount of the bill to let me pay it? that's just ridiculous.

but then she said they had an automated telephone bill-pay, and that was free. she gave me the number. i called it. alas, they had no record of my account. so i called 1 800 GET CHARTER again. the guy i talked to this time said, no problem - they have a service for closed accounts to pay bills, and gave me that number. i called it. it was a COLLECTION AGENCY. they sent me to a freaking collection agency over 63 cents. having been on the phone with various people for close to an hour at this point, i was (needless to say) pissed off.

so i call GET CHARTER again. before the rep could even say anything, i rattled off the entire scenario - including the bit with the collection agency (who by the way practically laughed in my face over the 63 cents) and web site and everything. she FINALLY said, "i can charge the 63 cents to your credit card on file, and waive the $1.99 fee." they even had my credit card on file this whole time??!?!?!

obviously, you can see why i hate charter. but i think the bigger issue here is cost-to-benefit analysis. charter spent about $1.00 to mail me the bills, then at least an hour of talk time in their call center to deal with me. over 63 effing cents. idiots.

so it was announced that the male and female winners of wimbledon this year will get paid the same amount of money, regardless of how many sets they play. i must say - i don't follow much tennis at all - but this is really kind of crazy. it's very well known that women make less than men in the vast majority of workplaces, but this is a very public, very media driven event, and they hadn't made the purses equal until 2007?!?! come on...it's the 21st century.


and besides the sheer fact that you can't offer men more money than women in an event like this, the men aren't the "spotlight" at all. i bet even male viewers like watching the women better - cute girls running around in short skirts - what guy doesn't like watching that?

so that's about all i have on that subject. sorry, that kind of sucked.

ps...paris is out of jail. now i can finally get some sleep at night.

sorry for the long stretch of inactivity. much to busy for regular blogging, which is sad. i actually went home from work the other night and did work. real work, from home. i felt like a 55 year old man, with a wife, 4 kids and a mortgage.

more importantly, the world just gained a new chiquita:
i love how all babies kind of look like little old men, with their scrunched-up wrinkley faces. so cute.

in other news, fat chance won game #3 on 6/8! i performed well above normal, with a decent outfield play as well as a hit. and a walk - which i'm getting very good at. tonight's game is at 10 pm, so given that the entire team isn't fall-down drunk, we may win again.

i'll be out running tomorrow am...head downtown if you aren't doing anything. it's for a good cause.

friday report

by now everyone has heard about josh hancock's father filing suit against a number of people following hancock's death last month. as soon as the news broke, i knew that it would become an extremely touchy topic...for a lot of reasons. everyone was shocked and saddened by his tragic accident, and then more saddened to find out that hancock's bac was twice the legal limit. it is terrible that he died - whether or not he was drinking and driving.

i have no idea what it would be like to lose a child in an accident like this, but i'm sure the tendency to blame other people would be hard to resist. and hancock's father is doing just that. he is suing mike shannon's, their manager on duty that night, the towing company, the tow truck driver, and the guy who got in the accident that originally brought the two truck to the scene.

the bottom line of this entire incident is responsibility. word got out that mike shannon's had been supplying him with as many drinks as he wanted for the 3.5 hours he was there. so now they are responsible for providing him the alcohol that caused the accident.

and the tow truck? apparently he did not tow the damaged car promptly enough, nor did he light flares on the highway to alert drivers. so he's to blame for obstructing the highway.

and the guy who wrecked his car first...he was the reason the tow truck driver had to be there in the first place, and he didn't properly move his vehicle to a place on the highway where drivers could avoid it.

the only person being overlooked in this scenario is the person who took the drinks, consumed the alcohol, denied a cab ride, put himself behind the wheel, and got in the accident that lead to his death.

like i said, i hate to say i would do it differently, but i think that his father might be trying to replace the memory of his late son with lawsuits and payouts. none of that will bring him back, nor will it stop anyone from doing the same thing. maybe his dad should try to start a program to speak to high schools, or colleges, or athletes - to possibly prevent this from happening to someone else. it was josh hancock's decision to drink and drive - and blaming everyone else isn't going to change that.

sorry for the downer before a lovely holiday w/e...make it a safe one.

hump day

i just realized last night that i'm going to MISS the last performance show of american idol, because i'll be at the 24th Annual Conference for Catalogs and Multichannel Merchants in Boston. i know you are jealous.

the upside to this little expedition is that we are going to fenway to see the red sox play the braves, and that there are multiple parties to attend every night. the downsides? obviously, the american idol deal. but also, i have to share a hotel room with my boss, i can't get appropriately hammered on free drinks at these parties, because i have to be on good behavior. darn.

i also realized that i left you all breathless with anticipation about fat chance's game #2. it got rained out. that's all. so i'm missing the game this week, and then we are off memorial day weekend, so i'll be back in true athletic action on 6/1.

in other news, a rothko painting sold for 73 million dollars. if you aren't familiar with rothko (because you didn't take Introduction to Art History like me - couldn't tell you one thing i actually learned, but every once in a while an artist's name sounds familiar) his paintings look like this:
now, i mean no offense to any artist...but i'm pretty sure i could have painted that. or something similar at least, all you really need is three colors of paint. then i'd have 73 million dollars and could quit my job, and skip the catalog conference, and watch american idol on a brand new tv. in a new house. with my new car in the driveway.

but then i'm sure i'd miss out on all sorts of interesting information about mail files and merge purge strategies.

fat chance - game number one

i regret that i have been very uninteresting the past few weeks...so i will now begin my 9 part series on the rising softball stars that are "fat chance." consisting of my siblings, their spouses, my bf, my cousins, their spouses, their cousins, and one girl we found on the league's message board, we are on our way to greatness.

game 1 - 04/28/07

it's been two weeks since we played, so i can't remember exactly how the game went - but it we lost by the 10-run-lead after two innings rule, so i think it may be better that i don't remember it. we had a rough time hitting, and a rough time fielding - but it was our first game. last season, we lost our first game just as badly, and ended up second in our league.

the highlight of the night was actually after our game was over. we were sitting on the bleachers, drinking and carrying on (cause that's what good softball players do), and the team that was playing after us was in need of a female on their team, because one of their girls got injured. they came over to the group of us, and i was the only girl left that could play for them. (we didn't think it would be right to send my 7.5-month-pregnant-sister out on the field) so i grab my glove and head out to second base - where they told me to go after i explained that i'm usually the catcher - with my game face on. now, since i'm usually catcher, i don't have much contact with the ball while it's in play, and that's the way i prefer it. so a few plays go by, i don't have to do much but look like i'm in the game and give a few cheers for my team.

a batter comes up and hits directly into center field, where our center-fielder makes the catch. i'm at second, ready to do what i need to do - and he throws to me. ordinarily, i would have tried to catch it, but instead knock the ball down with my glove, then throw it to the pitcher. this time, however, something came over me and i stuck my glove out and actually CAUGHT the ball. i turned and looked at my teammates like i had just made the play of the game - because to me, that was the most impressive thing i'd done all night. better yet, the most impressive thing i've done since we started playing a year ago.

so, loss for fat chance and all, i think i had a pretty good night.

game #2 is 05/11 - watch out "rave blue smocks"!! (what the hell kind of team name is that anyways?)

united coalition of the universal sisterhood of equality and fairness, and a fat paycheck too

the american association of university women released a study this week showing that women still make less then their male counterparts at work, and the pay gap widens the longer women work. this has been a known fact for a long time, but the fact that it's not getting better is a bit concerning to me.

women that attend highly selective colleges (on average) make about the same as men who attend minimally selective colleges. so that means i can go ivy league and some dude who goes to state will make the same pay as me. and it's not just the old "women are teachers and nurses" story either. these researchers actually took into account all personal choices that both men and women make (i.e. occupation, children, family, marital status, race)...and when all of those are equal, women still make 20% less than men.

the national women's law center put together a report as well, with this gem of a story:

"In the largest employment discrimination suit ever filed, female employees have sued Wal-Mart for paying women less than men for similar work and using an old boys’ network for promotions that prevented women’s career advancement. One woman alleged that when she complained of the pay disparity, her manager said that women would never make as much as men because "God made Adam first." Another woman alleged that when she applied for a raise, her manager said, "Men are here to make a career, and women aren’t. Retail is for housewives who just need to earn extra money." The Ninth Circuit recently reaffirmed the case as a class action on behalf of more than 1.5 million women who are current and former employees of Wal-Mart."

wow - remind me to not make my career at wal-mart.

but seriously, the only way this pay gap will decrease is if employers are forced to uphold certain standards of employee benefits. obviously, they can't fire a pregnant woman or something that off-the-wall, but legislation could make it much more difficult for companies to get away with it. like reporting all wages, allowing open communication between co-workers about salaries, and making employers provide detailed information when they are paying a man more than a woman.

well, that's enough of my feminist rant for today. join me tomorrow for "why women shouldn't always have to be the one to carry the baby."

st. louie isn't as bad as you think

today, i read Hopes for a Renaissance After Exodus in St. Louis, from the ny times. i guess i never thought about it, being a st. louisan all my life, but we've had some hard times when it comes the city's status. we had some good times too, like when st. louis was the fourth largest city in the country. obviously, those days are gone, and what's left is a city that is getting slammed, in more ways than one.

we all heard about our #1 spot on the most dangerous cities list. and, then there's the city schools being turned over to the state of missouri - schools in which "5 percent of 11th graders in city schools were proficient in reading." and the article even painfully brings up our nasty storms last year that knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people. let me tell you, susan saulny, if you had been without power for a week straight, you wouldn't be bringing that up to relive it.

so we have crime. so we have bad schools. so we have police officers that confiscate world series tickets and give them to their friends. but i think the things that people are trying to do for the city are being overlooked. loft buildings are being revitalized, restaurants and shops are now thriving downtown, companies are investing in rebuilding run-down areas, heck - people are LIVING downtown!

and if you talk to people from st. louis, they are proud of their city. they are cards fans, they eat toasted ravioli and tell their out-of-town friends about it, they are pissed about highway 40 construction but know it has to be done, they care when the elephant at the zoo has a baby. they are participating in the redevelopment of downtown, and are excited to see it boom. they defended it when morgan quitno's research officially said stl has more crime than detroit (and then they remembered that they beat detroit in the world series, so it all works out).

so i say, screw you ny times. just a year ago, you published an article about how young, hip, and cool the city is. and now one year later, you rip it a new arch-hole (i totally just thought of that). we st. louisans will continue to rebuild, improve and have pride in our town, and next year you can remember that and write about how great it is again.