Jimmy Fallon "Car Wash for Peace"

COACNEOAEN

Knock knock. Who's there? Canoe. Canoe who? Canoe come out and play.

Biscotti and I were gifted with a canoe on Sunday. We're very excited. We envision many summer days of taking the canoe out onto the ocean.

If I had a boat, I'd go out on the ocean, and if I had a pony, I'd ride him on my boat. And we could all together, go out on the ocean, me upon my pony on my boat.

Now we've got a boat, and instead of a pony we've got two dogs, also known as fat donkeys. Maybe we'll attempt to have the fat donkeys swim beside the canoe.

Canoe. Ocean. The same five letters. Pretty cool.

NACOE - Native American Center of Excellence
ANECO - Agusan del Norte Electric Cooperative (Philippines)
ENCOA - Enemy Course of Action

Nat Bailey Makeover

After the triple-A Canadians left town, replaced by the single-A Canadians, catching a game at Nat Bailey Stadium was less appealing. After a few seasons of absence I went to a couple of games last season and found myself enjoying it. This season's season opener is Tuesday June 19th, and this week's Georgia Straight has an article about work that was done on the prettiest little ballpark in North America over the off-season.

Here are highlights...

• The outside of the stadium has been painted and now includes 18 large panels of baseball art. The exterior also includes retro 1950s-style printing, giving it a nostalgic baseball feel.
• The outfield fence has been painted and moved forward about four metres in hopes of producing a few more home runs.
• The original scoreboard has been removed and replaced by a replica that is now embedded in the outfield fence and still requires someone to manually hang the scores inning by inning.
• All chainlink fencing has been removed down the first and third base lines, bringing people much closer to the action. "We still have some netting behind home plate, but the fans that are down the first and third base lines are going to feel like they're on the field," [new owner Jake] Kerr says. "The good news is spectators are going to feel like they're on the field; the bad news is they're going to have to be wide-awake and have their gloves with them because they're going to be much more in the action than they ever have been before."
• The food-service areas have been given a complete face-lift and the paying customers will get far more bang for their buck this year. "We're not raising prices, but we are improving quality, and we're certainly in some cases improving quantity," Kerr explains. "Last year's 16-ounce beer will be 20 ounces for the same price. And the hot dogs and the bratwursts will be a heck of a lot better, we think."

Click here for the full article.

Ready or Not.. BRRANNNNG

A kid and I were waiting for school to be over and for the afterschool programs to begin.

Kid: When is the bell going to go?
Me: Let's see.. it's two forty-three, so in seventeen minutes.
Kid: I think the bell is playing hide-and-seek with us.
Me: ??

38 Pitches

Curt Schilling is a pitcher for the Red Sox. He has a blog. A day or two after each start, he posts a summary of his performance. People then comment in droves (unfortunately you have to have a WordPress account to be able to comment). On Thursday, Schilling was still pitching in the bottom of the ninth and had two outs. He was working on a no-hitter. The next batter got a single. D'OH!

In the post for that game - 6/7/07 vs. Oakland - he writes that "someone referenced Ben Davis bunting to break up a perfect game in the 8th inning in 2002. I said what I’ve always said. I never said a word about that bunt and whether or not I thought it was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, and I never have. The game was 2-0 at that point, so the tying run was at the plate and the hitter was someone who’d swung the bat well against me."

Now, a perfect game means that there have been no baserunners. How then, with a 2-0 lead and a perfect game in progress, can a batter represent the tying run?

Dentist Confirmation Redux

Exactly a year and a half ago, to the day, I posted a post about confirming an impending dentist appointment. I wrote then that I received a reminder postcard a week before the appointment, asking me to call and confirm, which I did, and then I received a voicemail the day before the appointment asking me - once again - to call and confirm, which I did. I had thought, and still do think, that two requests for confirmation, both within a week of the appointment and by two different modes of communication, was a bit excessive.

Which brings us to today, June 8, 2007. I just retrieved today's mail, which included a postcard from the dentist. It's time to get together again... reads the card. You are due for your regular dental check-up and cleaning appointment. The date and time is handwritten, and then highlighted yellow is this: Please call us today to confirm the above appointment. The kicker? The appointment is on August 23, 2007.

So I'm supposed to call to confirm a dentist appointment two and a half months in advance?!?!? I'm not going to call today, or tomorrow, or next week. I'll wait until it's just a tad bit closer, like within a fortnight, or a month even. Besides, even if I do call and confirm today, past experience tells me that they'll be calling and mailing me postcards biweekly for two and a half months, expecting me to call and confirm each time.

How 'bout just one confirmation request, 5-7 business days before the appointment?

Makin' Bacon